The Grizzly Maze

May 16, 2005
Jans (Tracks of the Unseen
, etc.) presents a fast-paced, thoughtful and evenhanded account of the life and death of self-appointed bear guardian Timothy Treadwell, who, along with a girlfriend, was killed and eaten by grizzlies in Alaska's Katmai National Park in 2003. Treadwell had for 13 summers befriended the bears, camping in territory that includes a labyrinth of trails known as the "grizzly maze." No one knows why the grizzlies, normally tolerant of humans, turned on him. Two bears had to be shot, and many people felt vindicated by his death, because bear biologists and Park Service officials had for years criticized his activities, believing that contact with humans is not in the bears' best interest. Jans is ambivalent about Treadwell (whom he never met), sympathizing with his desire to communicate with the animals, yet admitting that the man was self-serving, courting the media and writing a mawkish book about his experiences. Jans doesn't stint on the details of Treadwell's troubled past, his gory death and the media frenzy that followed, but he tackles a broader issue as well: our evolving relationship with nature and the folly of this kind of attempt at interspecies interaction. Agent, Elizabeth Kaplan
.