I caught a bit about this guy-was he crazy or not? He seemed to think he had some kind of special relationship with these extremely powerful predators-what was he thinking?
I saw part of a film he made himself-he was ecstatic about pressing his hand into a pile of steaming bear crap!
pretty sad-I guess the guy just thought he was immortal or something…how much was left of him once the bears were through with him? 
I don’t see much in the way of factual questions here (aside from how much remained of the guy after the bear got him). Off to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Treadwell had managed to habituate the bears to his presence, which can be done with many species if one is patient. Unfortunately, he overstayed the season and the bear that got him was apparently one he had not dealt with before. Pretty much a nut job, yes. There’s another guy up here who is now living in bear country and hand feeds them, etc. (which is illegal). I would suspect it’s just a matter of time before we get to read about him becoming fertilzer.
By the way, to answer your question, it was just one bear that killed Treadwell and his girlfriend. All that was left was a bone and gut pile, which the bear tried to defend before it was killed.
Is a nutjob ‘crazy’? Where do you draw the line? From what little I’ve seen of this guy, he seemed to be a ‘New Age’ type. He believed things that could not withstand scrutiny, and he was successful long enough for his experiences to reinforce his beliefs. It seems to me that he wasn’t necessarily ‘crazy’, but was operating under a system of beliefs that did not take into account that Nature requires a greater understanding of how it works than he possessed.
Plus he seemed like he was using the relationship with the bears as a support system that he needed rather than getting therapy - he spoke of difficulty with alcoholism and IIRC he seemed to have other emotional, possibly sexual issues. I think he came out and said the bears provided support for him that he needed. So even if he saw danger signs, I think he would have found it extremely difficult to walk away from the situation and admit he was wrong, that not all of nature could be his friends.
One of the saddest things is that his looneytoons the-bears-are-my-buddies fixation got his girlfriend killed as well.
Isn’t it kind of dangerous to let the animals get used to any kind of human in the area, though? Just seems like it’s bad for them to get too accustomed to people being around them. That’s the kind of thing that can get THEM killed, too, in the long run, isn’t it?
What Treadwell was doing was wrong on so many fronts. That was not science he was conducting up there, it was himself addicted to the thrill of cohabitating with an animal that would and did kill him. He initially escaped “society” due to a heavy drinking and rug problem, his addiction was turned to the bears, and it eventually killed him.
BTW - The bush pilot that found him said he flew over the area where treadwell was and saw a large bear nibbling on a spinal column and rib cage…eventually found to be treadwells.
Rug addicts are weird.
d&r
Heh - watch out for those rugs…they can sneak up on you from behind like the lemmings, be aware… 
oops.
I read an online detailed account of his and his girlfriend’s final hours and a transcript of the attack as it was happening. Pretty creepy stuff.
I don’t know if he was crazy or not but he was stupid for thinking he had some special rapport with those beasts that lots of experienced animal experts don’t.
He strikes me as the kind of guy who under different circumstances might have started a cult and gotten a lot of people killed.
I saw this when it was on Discovery Channel about a year or so ago. I’d have to say the guy was delusional and wasn’t fully aware of the (potential) consequences of his actions.
Side note: guitarist Richard Thompson did the soundtrack for the documentary. One of his songs that was used quite frequently was called “The Razor’s Edge”, which is eerily appropriate.
I went to school with a girl who later worked as a polar bear handler for the Cincinnati Zoo. Part of her routine was feeding them grapes. (Bears apparently love grapes. Who knew?) Through the years she became lax on the safety rules and began reaching through the bars to toss the grapes. Bad idea. Because being a card carrying carnivore, one day the male decided her hand looked more appealing than the grape. In interviews, she said she could hear her bones crunching under his teeth and feel the fur on his face as he began pulling her arm farther into his mouth. Luckily, with the aid of some other workers, she was finally able to free herself. Unfortunately, her hand hand and lower arm were history.
She wasn’t a nutter by any stretch. But she made the same mistake as Treadwell and that is not accepting the fact that they are dangerous animals. I blame their cuteness.
I started a thread on this film about a year ago or more. Treadwell was deluded and incredibly irritating as well. After a while, I just wanted a bear to come along and get rid of him.
At first I thought “rug problem” was slang that I was too old to know… thanks for today’s smile. 
Here is the full story and investigation with a transcript. Very long and very eery. Wow, just wow. Again those last 6 agonizing minutes I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemy. Treadwells Girlfriend got the most hoirrific part of the whole thing, she was the last to die, and had to watch as her boyfriend was mutilated and ripoped apart, then the bear came to her…The transcript is a play by play with commentary and to be honest…I couldn’t stop reading. Very scary stuff. I just don’t understand why they didn’t at very least have bear spray.
Generally, habituation is done in game preserves. One can go to the lodge at Katmai, where grizzlies walk through the camp, or to Bwindi in Uganda and get close to gorillas. Nobody has ever been seriously injured at Katmai in all the years of operation. In Treadwell’s case, those bears were subject to hunting, so yes, his actions were not only dangerous to himself, but to the animals.
Phlosphr: As I recall, the bear that killed them was emaciated and probably ill; otherwise, it would have denned up like the others in the area. I doubt that bear spray would have deterred a starving animal more than briefly.
I think he prided himself on not having any kind of defense against the bears–it showed he trusted them, or something like that. He said once or twice in the movie something along the lines of “I’m the only person in history who has ever lived this close to bears WITHOUT having a gun.”
what I also find very, very, VERY annoying are his supporters in/on the movie who treat him as some sort of romantic cult hero.
I have a very difficult time trying to not be glad he got killed…and an equally hard time trying not to slap down his idolizers.
The special feature on the DVD on the soundtrack is terrific.