Last Nights TV show about the Man and his Grizzly Bears

Did anyone watch the programme last night on BBC2 about the man in Kamcathka who rescued orphan grizzly bears and taught them how to survive in the wilds of Kamkatcha, Russia, He was a very good man indeed.

It focused on two bears he had rescured from a Russian zoo - Andy & Mallish (who were due to be killed at the end of the summer as they would of grown too large for their tiny cage ) and two previous bears he had looked after - Sky and Buck, who came back to him of their own free will.

He taught them amongst other stuff, how to catch live fish, protected them from adult bears.

He has a theory that Grizzly bears are not dangerous to humans if they havn't had chance to realise that we are dangerous to them. He never carried a firearm , only pepper spray. His theory prooved correct in this show, as he stood up to a few adult bears only using a firm but calm voice, the bears respected him and moved out of his way. On one occasion he used the pepper spray as one of the adult bears was getting to close to Sky.... it ran away!

Eventually he had to let the two smaller bears more freedom in the wild....unfortuantely one of the bears, Mallish was caught by an adult bear and was killed, (the man - charlie russell did try to save him but on this occasion was too late and the bear got away with the cub).

The other three apparantly made their way to dens and safety for the winter. It was sad poor Andy had to keep going back to the hut to make sure his brother wasn't there before finally going to find his den.

Saying this i can accept things like this happen in nature but what i can't accept is that a few years earlier Charlie Russell had to leave this place where he lived, and while he was away poachers moved in and shot the bears... for bile for china and trophy hunters, its just evil, it makes me hate the human race... then you haveto think of all the good people such as this charlie stubbs to realise we are not all bad.

anyway if you are intersted in his story he has a website.........cloudline.org, where it goes into much more detail about the story of his beloved bears and his history with them which i think spans 45 years.

thanks for reading this, i hope i wasn't the only one to watch it, it was quite magical and moving.

I missed it (not unusual ) sonds like i would have enjoyed it as well

it was really good, it you have freeview it may be repeated His website is a good read

I will keep my eyes peeled thanks

It was wonderful Toby - I saw it and was incredibly moved. Charlie is a wonderful man, and I completely fell in love with the grizzlys.

I wish there were more programmes like this on TV.

I know, it was such a great show. I wanted to go out there and help him. Even my hubby was moved, he had big tears in his eyes at the end when Charlie couldn't follow little Andy any further on his way to the volcano.

Awwww I did too!

I saw it and thought it was a wonderful programme. I have great admiration for Charlie and his dedication to trying to improve the understandaing we have of grizzly bears before our fear of them drives them to extinction.

I have to admit to blubbing when he was describing how he followed Andy as far as he could to the volcano too...in fact I'm welling up again just thinking about it.

I saw it, what a lovely man and so brave protecting his orphans against the big male bears. I found it fascinating and what stunning scenery as well.

i agree ShaynLola and Katiecoos, i felt just the same way, i'm glas i wasn't the only one to watch it