Banner Sponsors
For artists and collectors sponsored by Intercal...your mohair supplier and Johnna's Mohair Store
Artist Bears by LesleyIf your in the UK this looks a really interesting programme about bears, this coming Monday channel 5. It's about a guy whos spent the last 7 years living alongside wild grizzly bears. It's on for an hour and 40 minutes! Thats my Monday night viewing sorted 
I don't own a television. So if it's available after the fact, I'll be interested.
-- Thomas Adam
GJOYful BearsI think I may have seen it somewhere it sounds familiar but if it what I think it is I can definitely recommend it to bear makers and people who love animals it's great!
And it's great to hear you don't own a TV, it wastes a huge part of my life but I haven't been able to get rid of it..... I think perhaps tv is addictive, as is this computer lol.
PennsylvaniaThis isn't a movie about a guy named Timothy Treadway? Is it?
If it is, don't watch it. Just trust me. You won't want to see it.
GJOYful BearsThat one I saw wasn't ~ what I watched was really good, I'd remember if it wasn't.
Artist Bears by LesleyThis programme tonight, heres the write up in the tv guide ~ '
Richard Terry travels to the Alaskan wilderness to document the life of Swiss biologist David Bittner, who has spent the last 7 years living alongside wild grizzly bears'
Thomas, you'll maybe get it online, not sure if channel 5 have somethin similar to iplayer for bbc? Yes your probably quite right not having a tv, though I don't watch much tv, especially in the summertime, can't wait to see this bear programme though 
Creative Design Studio (RKR4CDS)This was on here during the past few months - David Bittner - he tent camps and ropes off his small camp-psite and does an excellent job of photographing and filming the bears.
Totally unlike Treadway, who liked to 'think of himself like a bear' to the point of being able to touch them....with the expect results.
This is an informative film and has some wonderful vistas. I'm trying to recall if the same Mackenzie River locales are used as well as others or if he used different ones from the usual grizzly areas.
Kenai Peninsula?? Just can't recall now. I know we watched it because my DH & DS had a fly-in tent camping in one the same areas.
PennsylvaniaI don't know much about him but Bittner seems all right.
It's that Treadway guy who was the whack-job who ended up as a snack for a grizzly.
The thing that bugs me the most is not that he got himself killed. He got somebody ELSE killed in the process. He convinced his girlfriend to come with him on the last trip and they both wound up dead.
I did a little bit of reading up. David Bittner seems like he knows a lot about bears and how to live in the wilderness. I'd be interested to see that show but it's not broadcast in this country. Besides, I don't have cable TV. Only free-to-air. (That's still nine channels worth.)
Creative Design Studio (RKR4CDS)Yes, I wasn't going to mention his girlfriend.. and they did show a few quite graphic images of parts of his lower body...
We do have cable and it seems like David Bittner was on Nat Geo/Nat Geo Wild or Discovery - something like that. I'll post it if I ever see it coming back on again. My time memory may be off now that I think of it. Perhaps it was shown during the past winter.
DH is trying to clear out our backlog of recorded programs: I have the 3 hours of Lily & family/No Amer Bear Center still in the queue waiting to go to a DVD...some day when I have time to monitor the DVD recorder...
------
Found it - it had been on in early June:
Animal Planet, June 7 at 8pm: Swiss biologist David Bittner and cameraman Richard Terry follow the grizzly bear deep into the wilds of Alaska.
Along the way, they encounter grizzlies at the Alaskan salmon run, visit the spot where bear fanatic Timothy Treadwell was killed by a bear, and attempt to gain the trust of the massive predators.
--------
I didn't think to record it though, DH came across it and called me into the room to watch it.
PennsylvaniaWildlife documentaries are in kind of a gray area. It's a Catch-22. While it is best to leave bears alone and let them live free, it is also important for people to see them so that they understand how important they are to the environment.
Biologists like Bittner, who respect bears and keep their distance while documenting their lives are doing the public-at-large a good service but, the problem is that they also encourage wackos like Treadway. Not only do people like that risk their lives and the lives of other people, they encourage bears and other animals to acclimate to human presence.
That's the LAST thing we need!
We don't need giant grizzly bears who have lost their natural apprehension of humans, lumbering through populated areas, rummaging through our back yards and doing as they please. Bears need to live in the wild where they belong and people need to live in their own communities where they belong.
Does that mean that people should never go camping or never go enjoy the wilderness? No, but it means that people who go there should respect the fact that they are walking in the grizzly bear's back yard and act accordingly.
When too many people go trouncing around the woods, trying to hug grizzly bears, not only do they risk their own lives, they risk the lives of the public in general because those bears are now acclimated to humans. The respectful distance between bears and people begins to break down.
When that happens, people will get hurt but, in the long run it will be the BEARS who lose because they will have to be trapped, relocated and even killed in order to protect the public.
I like to see wildlife documentaries but the take-away should be "Let the bears be bears!"
Artist Bears by LesleyI didn't manage to watch it, but have recorded it on the digi box so will be watching it soon, I really need to be in the right frame of mind for TV, I have the attention span of a goldfish at times 
