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Doug Peacock (born April 5, 1942) is an American author, filmmaker, wildlife activist, and Vietnam War veteran. He is best known for his work dedicated to grizzly bear recovery in the lower-48, his book Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness [1] and serving as the model for the well-known character George Washington ...
Author and naturalist Doug Peacock, a disabled Vietnam veteran and Green Beret medic, was the real-life model for Edward Abbey’s George Washington Hayduke, and has published widely on wilderness issues.
“Doug Peacock is an iconic figure, a secular prophet in the wildass American West. His voice is important, angry, humane and unique. He’s also our best living connection to another essential American crank: the late Edward Abbey.
- Overview
- How’d you decide to go to into the wilderness after the war? Did you love the out-of-doors from a young age?
- How’d you come into contact with grizzly bears?
- How?
- Do you remember the first time you encountered a grizzly bear?
- Wow. Were you not afraid?
- So if a grizzly is charging you, you should remain totally still.
- How did you decide to begin filming the bears?
- How so?
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Author Doug Peacock spent years in the wild with grizzly bears. Here's how the bears saved him, how to handle bear charges, and more wisdom.
11:59
Doug Peacock served two tours in the Vietnam War as a medic with the U.S. Army Special Forces. To find peace, he spent much of the time imagining he was somewhere else—Yellowstone National Park.
When he got back, he sought solitude there, and lived amongst a landscape that he’d previously only dreamed about. He soon encountered grizzly bears, and as he got to know these creatures, he came to respect and love them. They changed his life forever.
Yes, I was raised in the woods of Michigan. After the war I was really out of sorts, like countless other vets. I couldn’t talk to anybody. So I went to the one place I was comfortable, the wilderness, in the northern Rocky Mountains.
As the snow melted, I went north, to the Wind River wilderness [in Wyoming]. Then I came down with malaria. I had to go to a flatter, gentler place, and that was Yellowstone.
There were grizzlies there. I wasn’t looking for them, but I ran into them, and they got my attention. They’ve been part of my life ever since. Those bears saved my life.
In grizzly country, humans are put in their proper place—you are not the dominant creature on the landscape. It’s a matter of getting yourself outside yourself. Your senses are forced outward. You see better. You smell better. It’s not yourself which is the center of the universe. It’s an enforced humility.
Yes. I was in the Yellowstone area soaking in a hot spring. It was a cold October day, and I looked across the meadow, and there was a mother grizzly and two yearling cubs, about 200 to 300 feet away. I knew you weren’t supposed to get that close.
The wind is blowing, and I’m naked in this hotspring. So I decide to climb a lodgepole pine. I grab the low branches and stand up, but because [of the shock of quickly rising from hot water], I blacked out. I fell and cut a huge gash in my forehead. Blood is running down into my eyes. I’m terrified, so I scramble to the top of the tree. When I arrive at the top, I discover it isn’t much taller than a Christmas tree.
I’ve just had enough experience with wild grizzlies that... I don’t have that kind of fear. I don’t do anything that to a bear would seem aggressive. I don’t look at the bear, or shout at the bear, or make any movements, and if I do, I do very slowly. The people who get mauled are the people who run, and climb trees, and yell at them.
Yes. Completely. I have precipitated charges by merely reaching for something. And don’t look at the bear, as that’s considered aggressive. A grizzly bear that stands up isn’t going to maul you. Unless you do something stupid, it’s just trying to see and smell better.
When I lived alone in the backcountry of Yellowstone, even a wacko ‘Nam vet could tell the bears weren’t doing well, being shot into extinction—as many as 270 grizzlies were killed from 1968 to 1973, according to researcher Frank Craighead. (The bears were listed as threatened in 1975.)
These bears had done me a modestly great service, and I had to return the favor. So I filmed them, and used that film to advertise their plight. I shared my film [with National Geographic and others] and went around showing the footage to people and talking about the bears. And by that time I’d started a family, so I began writing about it all to make a living, and I’m still working for the bears.
I still go around talking about them, and have been fighting the delisting effort [in which the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed taking the grizzly bear off the Endangered Species List, a move that was overturned]. (Related: Will grizzlies survive being hunted?)
We have a record number of illegal grizzly kills in the Yellowstone area, beyond anything in the historical record. [It’s mostly] by people that don’t know better. They don’t know grizzly bears, they tend to fear what they don’t know, and they hate what they fear.
Doug Peacock is a former Vietnam War medic who found solace and inspiration in the wilderness and grizzly bears. He shares his life story, lessons, and passion for conservation in a new film and a book.
- 12 min
- Douglas Main
Learn about Doug Peacock's life, work, and passion for grizzly bears in this podcast interview. He shares his stories of Vietnam, Yellowstone, Edward Abbey, climate change, and more.
Doug Peacock - Grizzly Bears, Vietnam War, Cabeza Prieta, Hayduke, Edward Abbey, Renegade Naturalist, Walking It Off, The Essential Grizzly.
27 mar 2014 · Doug Peacock is a former Vietnam veteran and a key figure in the environmental movement. He shares his insights on global warming, extinction and the last time humans faced a major climate change in North America.
