i've caught some of both of those shows, but after watching one episode of man vs. wild, i've made it a point never to watch the damnable show again.  i may not be a survial expert, but i know enough to realize that, if one is lost above the treeline in the high sierras (or any mountains.  or, frankly, anywhere) the first thing one does NOT do is jump in a fucking river, driftwood raft (crafted with secret indian techinque) or not.  unless one equates "survival and escape" with "death by hypothermia".  personally, i don't.  and yet, that was the first action mr. bear undertook.  follow the river, yes.  use it for drinking water, yes.  jump in the frigid, icy, rapid-filled river, er, no. 

i spent the rest of the episode yelling at the tv, and mr. bear.  i yelled at him for wasting time and energy carving throwing sticks with which to hunt rabbits.  i yelled at him for jumping in a fucking lake, in order to swim to the highway, instead of walking around it.  i yelled at him for having a tin cup, but no compass or visible knife.  and so on.  then i decided never to watch his damned show again.  sure, knowing how to forage and hunt is helpful if you intend to stay lost in the forest.   but if your goal is to get out of the woods, food can wait.  water is important, and staying warm.  you can last a week or two without eating.  surely, if you simply gone astray on a hike, and accidently kicked your entire pack off a thousand foot cliff, you don't intend to stay any longer than necessary?

likely, my expectations of getting useful and practical advice were, shall we say, a bit high.  still, isn't it reasonable to think that, when watching a show on survival techniques, the very first tip shouldn't be to do something that will likely kill you?

yeah, yeah...i know.  i suppose there is the part of me that worries about those who watch and think they are learning something useful.  instead of just gettting sensationalism.

granted, i also get irritated by that truck commercial where, when faced with an apparently annoyed grizzly, some dumbass gets out of his humongeous truck, grabs a salmon and tosses it to the bear.  bears are amazing creatures: highly intelligent and certainly, like any large predator, given a bad rap.  that said, they are also extremely large, powerful and fast predators that, while not going out of their way to eat people, certainly have no qualms about it.  and god forbid you give a she-bear any reason to think you are a threat to her cubs.  then you're just fucked.  but i digress.

as far as mr. irwin, i don't think the shock and surprise at his death was due to him being killed while working.  instead, i think everyone was expecting him to get his head bitten off by croc, or a snakebite to the nuts.  something a bit more dramatic than a lucky shot by a stingray.  it was the relative benignness of the creature that killed him that was shocking...i'm sure most Discovery execs thoughts were along these lines:  "Wait, a stingray?  He got killed by a fucking ray?  You're absolutely positive he wasn't devoured by a great white shark when he tried to give it scritches under it's chin?  No?  Didn't get bitten in half by a sperm whale?  No?  Just a fucking, measely stingray?  Well, frankly, I'm stunned that he died like this."

The very first thing to do that is not intentionally strand yourself in the elements.  Grylls and Stroud are thrill seekers too.  Much wiser and saner than some of 'em (and god help me, I'd do it too if I had the time and the means and the will), but I can't believe they're not totally getting off on the experience.

I agree about a deathwish, but I just think there's a gray area there.  Treadwell may well have had one.  Irwin probably didn't, but was pretty damn overconfident.  Wallenda, well, let's put it this way.  My job is science and engineering, and if I loved it (which I don't really, but let's say I did), and if my exit looked imminent, I just might prefer a huge lab explosion as my way out.  Wallenda was a tightrope walker in a family of tightrope walkers (I googled).  He'd been doing it since he was an infant.