Book Review: Grizzly Heart by Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns

 

So I bought this book at a secondhand book market a while back, with the intention of me starting to read more non-fiction that isn't centered around wolves. I honestly don't know much about bears in general, so this seemed like a good opportunity to learn more about this species. Let's take a look at this book, then.

This book follows bear-researchers and enthusiasts Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns, two partners who travel to the Siberian wilderness each year in order to monitor the local brown bear population and look for ways to improve human-bear contact in this land where the two share a not-so-friendly relationship. While working on this project, they end up taking in three orphaned bear cubs and try to raise them on their own in hopes of them eventually returning to the wild.

There really is something quite enthralling about books where people live among wild animals, particularly the wild and dangerous kind. I have read book after book and seen documentary after documentary of people doing this with animals such as wolves and lions. And part of us will probably always think "wow, that's cool, I want to experience that, too!". But in recent years I've really come to realize that interactions like this may not always be for the best. 

Sure, in principle, it seems cool to be able to pet a lion, play tug-of-war with a wolf or hug a bear, but is it really for the benefit of the species? In most cases people are only putting themselves in needlessly dangerous situations when doing stuff like this, and in turn they may even pose an (indirect) threat to the animal, which may get very accustomed to a human presence and grow too bold around them. 

Case in point, I don't agree with all of Russell's and Enns' tactics in this book. I definitely think they have good intentions (after all, trying to mend bear-human relationships is a noble cause), their ways of going about it are on the questionable side a lot of the time. 

Heck, even the prologue of the book starts out like this. Our first interaction is literally one of the researchers putting their hands in the mouth of a wild grizzly in order to feel the tongue and palate. That's just...not a responsible way of handling predators, especially wild ones. At that point you're just begging for her to close her jaws and lose an arm. 

Russell and Enns do do a lot of good stuff. They try to learn more about brown bear behavior and communicate with local people and other bear researchers about the ursid population in Siberia, but there's also just so much stuff they do I can't condone. Getting really physical with the bears they adopt, not keeping a respectful distance, etc. I do appreciate that they don't hand-feed any of the bears (including the cubs they look after), but even then, feeding them in a certain spot near your cabin still gets them accustomed to being around humans so much.

True, the trio of cubs (Rosie, Biscuit and Chico) never end up being dangerous towards Enns, Russell and anyone else that we know of, but there's still the fact that these are dangerous wild animals accustomed to contact with humans and being fed by/near them. While I think that direct human-wild predator interactions in captivity are already questionable, it at least somewhat makes sense since these animals aren't truly "wild" and have to be looked after by humans. But the brown bear trio (and all the other bears they encounter in Siberia without keeping a proper distance) is now just used to positive close-range human interaction, and I don't think that is actually a good thing for the species.

Sure, it may make people think that these are more cuddly and friendly animals. Do I believe that certain predators such as wolves, tigers, etc. are widely misunderstood and portrayed as only bloodthirsty? In some cases, yes, but that doesn't mean that they're completely harmless, either. They're still possibly dangerous wild animals that should be respected and thus not be interacted with as if they're a cute puppy or whatnot. 

Also, an animal doesn't deserve or not deserve being preserved just based on whether or not humans can form friendships with it. That large crocodile or killer lion has just as much right to exist as "cute" animals such as pangolins, lemurs, etc. Part of Russell's and Enn's point seems to be that bears deserve to be protected because bonds can be formed with them. That's just...not a good point of view. We cannot form bonds with every animal, and that's okay. Rather, we should respect wild predators for what they are, keep our distance and support them in the best ways possible (for example, reserves and responsible conservation centers) rather than try to cuddle with them and make them our best buddies. I get it, wrestling a bear or petting a tiger seems cool, but in the end it's not what's beneficial for the animal. 

Okay, so this has basically been an entire rant on how I disagree with Russell's and Enns' methods. What about the book itself? Well, honestly, I found it quite hard to get through. Things went pretty slowly and I didn't find the main author's voice (Russell's) to be very engaging. I liked learning new things about bears, but in the end it really was more a book of Russell and Enns trying to prove how close they could get to bears than an actually very informative book that truly informs one about bear behavior. I learned some new stuff, but not as much as I expected.

The title also seems a bit weird. It's named after the grizzly bear subspecies, but the book itself 90% only covers the Russian brown bears, which aren't grizzlies. Wouldn't "Bear Heart" or something have been more accurate? Grizzlies are brought up very rarely when Russell and Enns refer to their North American-exploits, but the main part of this book really is about the Russian brown bears. So kind of a pointless/misleading title. 

Russell also has this annoying tendency to represent anyone who disagrees with his and Enns' methods as really unlikable and has this "of course they're wrong" attitude about it, when in reality they do raise some valid concerns. Yes, I agree that some of the fellow researchers he encountered in Russia don't seem like the nicest people, but they really do bring up some points that deserve to be addressed rather than haughtily dismissed like Russell does.

So, yes, this has been a long review, but I just can't in good conscience give this book a high rating. This doesn't seem like true animal conservation, it seems more like trying to hang out with bears with the excuse of improving bear-human relations in Siberia. I'm not saying Enns or Russell are horrible people or anything, and they definitely do do some good, but they really don't seem to respect the bears as wild animals that need to be studied from a distance, or the other researchers as people that bring up valid concerns. 

And even that aside, Russell's writing voice is rather dull. I'll give it one star for some of the bear information I learned, another one for the pretty photo sections of the book, but nothing else. 

Rating: 2/5