A Sand County Almanac By Aldo Leopold

In the editorial by Ron Judd titled “Why returning grizzlies to the North Cascades is the right thing to do” found on the Seattle Times’ website, Mr. Rudd states his case for the reintroduction of Grizzly bears into the North Cascade Mountains of Washington State. He makes the argument that fatal interactions between hikers and bears are not a valid argument against reintroduction because the rarity of these encounters and the rarity of aggressive bears. He also cites some of his personal experiences encountering these animals and both his own and their reaction. Mr. Rudd uses this information to paint a picture that the bears are not as dangerous as commonly believed, using as an example the presence of grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park which sees many more visitors than the North Cascades. Another point that Rudd discusses is his belief that bears are an important part of the wilderness experience, he shares his feelings after one of those encounters: “With senses heightened off the charts, it was as if I had stopped observing the natural world, and for the first time, stepped all the way into it.

The Man Who Lived with Grizzlies “I would never, ever kill a bear in defense of my own life - would not go into a bear’s home and kill a bear.” These were the words of Timothy Treadwell, the main character of the documentary film, Grizzly Man. Directed by Werner Herzog and released on August 12, 2005, Grizzly Man stitches together video footage taken by Treadwell over five years that he spent living among the grizzly bears of Kodiak Island in Alaska to tell a mesmerizing story. Using interviews of people close to Treadwell and Herzog’s narration, the film reveals Treadwell to be not a mentally deranged lunatic, but a passionate, remarkable human being worthy of the audience’s exploration. Grizzly Man effectively translates a cruel punchline

David Baron’s “The Beast in the Garden” primarily follows the life of Michael Sanders, a biologist working mainly in Boulder, Colorado. Michael’s mission throughout the story is the study and prediction of the dangers of urban cougars. Living in a city of staunch environmentalists, Michael’s attempts to sway public opinion is a daunting task. As it would seem, the majority of Boulder environmentalists value cougar’s lives over human lives. Michael Sanders is a middle aged biologist, originally from a small town in Tennessee.

He speaks of dangers and troubles he thought of going onto and during his time on the trail. One thing he fretted over relentlessly is the thought of stumbling across a bear, or a group of bears. He uses a hilarious form of cause and effect when describing how he would die if he ever encountered multiple bears. As described in the book “What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die, of course.

As of today, in American society, culture has developed a preconceive construct, labeling nature. To many individuals, the wilderness is a destination or place, one can visit in order to view the last remaining spots on earth that are “pure.” These designated places have, therefore, not been infected by human civilization. In American culture, wilderness is seen as an experience where one can go out and hike through the mountains and families can go camping in order to experience what is is like to be “out in the wild.”

In the book, A Sound County Almanac, Aldo Leopold rejected the idea of a division between science and ethics in his understanding of land ethics. This argument proposes that ethics and ecology are intertwined as both must understand the other. Leopold's perspective of the land ethic takes on both ethical responsibilities and scientific insights. "Thinking Like a Mountain" describes how hunting wolves to extinction raises ecological consequences as this situation threatens the balance of the ecological ecosystem (Leopold 2020). Within “The Land Ethic,” Leopold emphasizes ecological knowledge as the importance of understanding nature and recognizing the responsibilities humans have towards it ethically.

When people isolate themselves from society they develop similar characteristics. In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Christopher McCandless, the main character graduates as a top student and makes the choice to give away all his money to charity as well as leaving behind his belongings instead of pursuing a career. He then travels out to Alaska, journaling his experience in the wildness and changes his name to Alex. In the movie Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog uses footage shot by Timothy himself to document what inspired him to live with the wild bears in Alaska. One of the bears Treadwell takes care of tragically kills him; his footage gives a stronger look at nature and its harsh realities.

When the first Americans arrived hundreds of years ago, they brought their culture and values with them into the country. These ethics that they have still apply to the people of the present day just as they once did during their time. One example is that people should respect and honor nature instead of abusing it. In the short story “Coyote and the Buffalo,” the Coyote receives a young cow from Buffalo Bull as a gift for helping him (Mourning Dove 51). This cow had the ability of supplying the Coyote with meat forever by cutting a piece of fat off, but he later tried to kill it for more meat (Mourning Dove 52).

In his 1995 essay “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon declares that “the time has come to rethink wilderness” (69). From the practice of agriculture to masculine frontier fantasies, Cronon argues that Americans have historically defined wilderness as an “island,” separate from their polluted urban industrial homes (69). He traces the idea of wilderness throughout American history, asserting that the idea of untouched, pristine wilderness is a harmful fantasy. By idealizing wilderness from a distance, he argues that people justify the destruction of less sublime landscapes and aggravate environmental conflict.

Jack London’s “The call of the wild” has a prominent place in the canon of American literature. Even though the novel is primarily the story of a dog named Buck, the book distinguishes itself from other animal adventures in its display of philosophical depth. An analysis through an eco-critical lens, narrowing it down to wilderness, the paper attempts to explore the portrayal of wilderness and the influence of wilderness on the lives of both the human and non- human beings in the novel. Buck, uprooted from a comfortable civilized life of the sun kissed Californian estate struggles as a sled dog in the Canadian wilderness. The wilderness is an uncaring cruel world where only the strong live.

The Alaskan Bush is one of the hardest places to survive without any assistance, supplies, skills, and little food. Jon Krakauer explains in his biography, Into The Wild, how Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan Bush and ultimately perished due to lack of preparation and hubris. McCandless was an intelligent young man who made a few mistakes but overall Krakauer believed that McCandless was not an ignorant adrenalin junkie who had no respect for the land. Krakauer chose to write this biography because he too had the strong desire to discover and explore as he also ventured into the Alaskan Bush when he was a young man, but he survived unlike McCandless. Krakauer’s argument was convincing because he gives credible evidence that McCandless was not foolish like many critics say he was.

Timothy Treadwell was considered out of the normality because he wanted to go live with the bears in the Alaskan wilderness believing he was going to help them (“The Bear Man”). When Chris McCandless and Timothy Treadwell died it was in a coincidental way. Chris McCandless had donated $24,000 dollars to OXFAM a charity to stop hunger and in the end he died from hunger (Krakauer 72). Timothy Treadwell went to go help the bears and in the end he died from a bear attack (“The Bear

Although documentaries are often presented and received as objective recordings of reality, directors use editing techniques to control what the audience feels and concludes, just like they do in other forms of film. In Grizzly Man, director Werner Herzog uses cuts and the order of sequences to borrow from the reality of found footage and develop his argument that Timothy Treadwell decided to live with the bears to create a new identity, but that he knowingly made a poor decision because nature is brutal. Throughout the documentary, Herzog effectively develops the idea that Treadwell felt like an outsider in human society and could connect better with bears. At the beginning, Herzog suggests that Treadwell sought “to leave the confinements

Grizzly Man is a documentary film released in 2005 and followed a bear activist named Timothy Treadwell, he decided that he wanted to live with bears in Alaska. For thirteen years, during the summer month, Treadwell camped in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. During this time he had to hide from the authorities, he was on a personal mission in order to better protect the population of grizzly bears. He believed the park service rangers were not doing their job well and it was his duty to go out into the wilderness. The film depicts the past by including the original footage from Treadwell, this is because he always had the movie camera with him.

Leopold suggests that there is a strong need for land ethic because he sees a lack of his beliefs among the rest of the human beings. In the long run Leopold realized that how wolves help creating a balance in the eco system and how the deer and other species were causing a lot of damage to their natural habitat. This is a perfect example of what happens when there is excessive safety, in the long run it only causes