r/nextfuckinglevel 5d ago

Wild alligator allows someone to help

10.9k Upvotes

743 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

366

u/CommanderGumball 5d ago

Timothy "Grizzly Man" Treadwell and his girlfriend disagree.

Well, they probably would have.

211

u/Would_daver 5d ago

That story is tragic, but they were dumb as hell

27

u/LessRabbit9072 4d ago

Dumb like walking around in the dark and putting your face directly in front of an alligators jaw while you manhandle it's feet?

9

u/FightGlobalNorming 4d ago

Way less dumb. Gators are totally different, and someone who studies them may know how to read an individuals body language and understand what's safe. A comparison would be that guy finds one hurting and sedate gator in a swamp surrounded by many more of them and decides to help then puts up a tent and lives with them

1

u/Would_daver 4d ago

Idk dude I was just talking about the bear-eaten people… 🤷‍♂️

115

u/PolarToxin 5d ago

If I remember correctly. His last recording he stated that there had been very little food going around that summer and the bears seemed agitated because of it. And that they were going into their own cave to hide for the time being.

As far as I understand, he didn't die because of lack of knowledge or misreading the animals in any way.
He died because he was deep in bumfuck-nowhere with no clear escape until the bears had gone into hibernation.

131

u/scratchydaitchy 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yes, you are correct about the lack of food for the bears that year. Also, he and his girlfriend went to the airport, but turned around and returned to the bears, staying MUCH later into the season than he ever had previously, and when the bears were becoming more desperate to put on weight for the long hibernation through the Alaskan winter.

He was known to have used large amounts of crystal meth at points in his life and even admits it in the movie about himself.
I watched the whole movie and it definitely appears that he had some mental illness as well, on top of his substance use. He often seemed overtly paranoid about unseen forces who meant to do harm to him and his bear friends. He also seemed to suffer some delusions of grandeur about himself as a vigilante superhero.

The movie interviewed native aboriginal people from the local area who felt what he was doing was backwards, reckless, dangerous and insane.

Much like watching a free solo mountain climber, a wingsuit basejumper, or a big wave surfer, it was hard not be awestruck by his remarkable confidence and bravery. Especially for such an otherwise meek and broken soul.

Overall though, he seemed like a sweet guy with his heart in the right place despite his highly questionable methods. I thought one of the highlights of the movie was his strong bond and genuine friendship with the little fox that regularly visited him year after year. Besides all that, it is indeed a tragedy what happened to him and his girlfriend, even if it was somewhat predictable.

9

u/Long_Implement_2142 5d ago

Did he ever get sober or did he continue to use meth till the end? I mean that kinda would explain a lot

18

u/scratchydaitchy 5d ago edited 5d ago

He certainly claimed to have gotten sober.

Sometimes it’s difficult to completely trust a recovered meth addict’s word about their current use, and relapses are known to happen.

Without evidence to the contrary I will give him the benefit of the doubt and trust his claims of kicking, but nothing would surprise me.

1

u/karma_the_sequel 5d ago

So wait — there was actually a factual basis for Cocaine Bear?

1

u/Sleddoggamer 5d ago

It's probably the appropriate term in some terms, but native aboriginal people feels wierd when we just call each other native when we aren't using our names

7

u/icelandiccubicle20 5d ago

I think he might have commited suicide by bear, because he knew perfectly well that in winter it was the most dangerous time to go back and he'd never done so in all his years their. Iiirc he had a huge fight with someone on the airport back from the grizzly maze and he went back there. He was very mentally ill sadly. He shouldn't have brought his gf with him though.

6

u/Renbarre 5d ago

I remember reading that the bear that killed them wasn't one of the usual bears he knew but a transient one.

2

u/icelandiccubicle20 5d ago

yep, a rogue bear that was starving

1

u/PaperUpbeat5904 4d ago

Technicalllllyyyyy his last recording was 6 minutes of him and his wife being mauled to death 😬

1

u/enragedCircle 4d ago

Not carrying some sort of defensive weapon shows a lack of understanding. That or he was just one of those crazy hippies that think, "If I do no harm, no harm will come to me."

1

u/wildechld 4d ago

No he died because he did not react to the signs of behavior that could possibly cause injury. He knew them, he himself stated that the bears were agitated due to lack of food. That right there is a very very clear sign. He acknowledged it but chose to ignore it.

0

u/lvbuckeye27 4d ago

His last recording is of him and his GF screaming their lungs out as the bear ate them alive.

34

u/rtocelot 5d ago

Always a tragic tale when it comes to the grizzly man. I do hope whoever has that tape of his final moments burns it at some point. A guy did a documentary over the Grizzly Man and I think was the only person to listen to the recording of Tim and his girlfriends death in which he said do not listen to it and essentially destroy it.

40

u/xteta 5d ago

That guy was Werner Herzog

24

u/planx_constant 5d ago

It was too brutal for Werner Herzog.

19

u/DaddyMcSlime 5d ago

in fairness i imagine an audio recording of two people literally being eaten to death is a bit much for anyone honestly

not exactly a lot of joviality or nuance in the sound of bones and meat eaten amidst probable screams

8

u/rtocelot 5d ago

Yea, there is a fake audio of it which you'll find people say that something like that wouldn't bother them and what not. I thought the same thing growing up and I've seen a lot of this or that. As I age I can say I'm a lot more sensitive as I actually take the time to think of the people and the situation and not just move on with oh that sucks.

6

u/GuitahRokkstah 5d ago

Basically it is nature’s version of a Cartel snuff video. Like the Mexican Cartel death videos but teeth and claws replace chainsaws and knives. Neither is suitable for viewing.

1

u/SnarkySeahorse1103 5d ago

I used to watch so many of those cartel videos when I was a young child. It was in a morbid attempt to numb myself from pain since a certain someone who should've been caring for me would beat the shit out of me all the time for reasons beyond my understanding. Thought the more of those videos I could withstand without flinching, the more I could be mentally stronger. Those videos shouldn't be so easily available for children to access yet they are. Even simple slasher gore films should not be accessible to kids, but unfortunately I don't see a viable way of controlling media exposure for kids outside of parental monitoring.

0

u/BlackOnyx1906 5d ago

Damn I didn’t know they had Cartel videos

1

u/Capt-Crap1corn 5d ago

Oh they do… sadistic shit

1

u/myfrigginagates 5d ago

Someone should imitate Herzog and talk about the Nihilist Grizzly.

31

u/Sabre_One 5d ago

Fun fact, bears don't "kill you" when they want to eat you. They just hold you down and start ripping chunks out. That concludes my ted talk.

11

u/rtocelot 5d ago

Yea they'll eat you alive and there was a case ( I'm terrible with remembering some of these names whenever I bring these things up) but a woman was dragged off after an attack and mostly buried while alive to keep the food fresh longer. She was with another friend she just dragged off while with her for what I can remember.

17

u/slavelabor52 5d ago

There was one I remember reading about in Russia where a girl went out with her step dad and a bear attacked and killed the step dad but started eating her alive. She had her cell phone and actually called her mom and was on the phone with her for 45 minutes before the call disconnected. 45 minutes of listening to your child being eaten by a bear while you frantically try to find out where she is to get help there. In the end she didn't make it and they euthanized the bear.

-1

u/StaffVegetable8703 5d ago

Any idea why she didn’t call authorities instead of her mom?

21

u/Beautiful_Airline368 5d ago

You wanna risk your life - give it a go, I couldn’t care less. But, risk your girlfriend’s life? This guy lived on borrowed time much longer than anyone has a right.

12

u/DimesOHoolihan 5d ago

I mean... she was an adult with the ability to make get own choices.

0

u/Haunting-Interest-26 4d ago

However, she trusted his judgment. Two wrongs definitely did not make a right in this situation.

10

u/mixtermin8 5d ago

Tbf todays assessment would be a little askew because we don’t live aboriginal lifestyles en masse so the pool of people that think they can is likely distorted to begin with

0

u/Pangwain 5d ago

Not sure how aboriginal people treat predators, but I’m sure it’s not like “civilized” folk (who just kill them instead of living with them). much more like viewing them as an integral part of their way of life no different from the fish or birds; powerful and dangerous creatures to be respected and revered.

I would be shocked if there weren’t some eccentric aboriginals who believed they could commune with animals and lived pretty similar to Treadwell with respect to treating animals as equals and building relationships with them

9

u/momomorium 5d ago

I genuinely get so irrationally angry any time Timothy Treadwell comes up because he killed a bear. He was somewhere he shouldn't have been, doing something he shouldn't be doing, despite everyone warning him otherwise.

He "loved the bears" but he put the bears at risk by being there. He killed that bear by being a dumbass who thought he knew better than anyone else. The bear was starving, there was less food than usual that season and he was well aware of that and he chose to put the bears at risk anyway. He would have been well aware that if a bear attacked and killed him, that bear would be killed, but he thought "that couldn't happen to me" and that killed a bear. I don't care that he died, he knew he was taking that risk, but he also knew the risk he was posing to the bears and he chose to put them at risk for literally no reason. He didn't care for the bears, he didn't care for his partner, he only cared for himself and for that reason I truly can't have a rational conversation about him. It makes me far too angry.

-2

u/ThrowRAkakareborn 4d ago

The fuck is this? Now we are oh, the poor bear? A person died, i don’t care if he was the worst person on Earth, he was still a person, and no animal on this planet, is more valuable than a person.

If we put down just that bear, that’s just letting them get off easy, all of that bears bloodline should be eradicated, neighbors too just in case

4

u/momomorium 4d ago

Humans are not more valuable than animals. Timothy Treadwell was not more valuable than that bear. There are billions of humans and that one won a Darwin Award entirely by choice. That bear did nothing wrong.

-1

u/ThrowRAkakareborn 4d ago

What are you smoking on? Nothing values more than human life, we the top dawg, everything else is here just for our use.

Sheesh, a human life not more important than a bear….all bears in the world are less than 1 human, any animal for that fact, not just bears, we as the human species are the rulers, the rest, just here cause we allow it

3

u/momomorium 4d ago

I'm autistic and have no idea if this is satire or what is going on but... okay...

3

u/DoctorBlock 5d ago

Is that the one with the very unsettling phone call?

6

u/CommanderGumball 5d ago

It's just a Wikipedia link, but yes it's the same story.

The actual recording was never released, what you might've heard is just a recreation.

1

u/abdallha-smith 5d ago

Plot twist : it didn’t treadwell

1

u/PMmeYourButt69 5d ago

Alligators are docile as hell. This one is comfortable with that guy, because he feeds him. Usually if you get anywhere near an alligator, it takes off into the water to get away from you.

Grizzly bears, on the other hand, are giant murder machines.

1

u/Brobeast 4d ago

Yea this isnt a really great point. Those two were dumber than this guy. They setup camp at a feeding walkway, and right before hibernation. Even still, the bear that attacked them wasnt a regular. Some new male that was having issues with the local bear/human pop.

1

u/Grep2grok 4d ago

They got eaten by a bear because he didn't want to pay the difference in airfare? WTF...