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The Grizzlies and Us
ALL PROFITS FROM THIS BOOK WILL GO TO THE VITAL GROUND FOUNDATION
Lynne Seus and her husband, Doug Seus, started with twenty-five cents and a dream they were told was preposterous. Their family and friends repeated, "You can't just go rescue grizzly bears and turn them into movie stars." Yet, Bart the Bear roared to fame and was recognized as a star, and featured as a presenter at the 70th Academy Awards. This magnificent animal shared the screen with some of the most famous faces in Hollywood, as did his namesake, the orphaned cub, Bart the Bear 2. Their most important role, however, was their inspiration for the Vital Ground Foundation. Their name and power connected celebrities and wilderness advocates to preserve over one-million acres of wildland to date. The lives of these beloved grizzlies had to matter for something more than movies.
In The Grizzlies and Us you will laugh, you might cry, and then you might laugh some more at the stories of the great soul of the great bear at the heart of a family.
This is a story that no one else can tell. That is unless one has over 50 years of singular memories with five grizzly bears, a black bear, wolf packs, cougars, coyotes, eagles, foxes, bobcats, owls, raccoons, deer, a badger named Billy, and a trio of human children. "You can't do this," they said. "Nobody does this." This is how we did it. It is a love story.
Lynne Seus and her husband, Doug Seus, started with twenty-five cents and a dream they were told was preposterous. Their family and friends repeated, "You can't just go rescue grizzly bears and turn them into movie stars." Yet, Bart the Bear roared to fame and was recognized as a star, and featured as a presenter at the 70th Academy Awards. This magnificent animal shared the screen with some of the most famous faces in Hollywood, as did his namesake, the orphaned cub, Bart the Bear 2. Their most important role, however, was their inspiration for the Vital Ground Foundation. Their name and power connected celebrities and wilderness advocates to preserve over one-million acres of wildland to date. The lives of these beloved grizzlies had to matter for something more than movies.
In The Grizzlies and Us you will laugh, you might cry, and then you might laugh some more at the stories of the great soul of the great bear at the heart of a family.
This is a story that no one else can tell. That is unless one has over 50 years of singular memories with five grizzly bears, a black bear, wolf packs, cougars, coyotes, eagles, foxes, bobcats, owls, raccoons, deer, a badger named Billy, and a trio of human children. "You can't do this," they said. "Nobody does this." This is how we did it. It is a love story.
238 pages, Paperback
Published October 25, 2024
2 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 3, 2025
Lots of fun, wholesome, cute, and inspiring stories in here. Highly recommend.
Great, relatively quick read. Lots of pictures of the animals, especially Bart, with the Seus's and other celebrities. Along with some personal stories and their "origin story" if you will, most chapters cover the movies that Bart was on, with some "fun facts" and how they got to be on the picture.
Great, relatively quick read. Lots of pictures of the animals, especially Bart, with the Seus's and other celebrities. Along with some personal stories and their "origin story" if you will, most chapters cover the movies that Bart was on, with some "fun facts" and how they got to be on the picture.
February 22, 2025
An absolutely breathtaking tale about achieving the impossible. Lynne Seus is a beautiful soul, and her book brings to life the true story of the bears. All of the money from selling these books goes right back to the bears through The Vital Ground Foundation. I can’t think of a better way to give back than to give back the earth to the creatures to whom it truly belongs.
December 5, 2025
Imagine, if you can, a book so full of unique lived experience that only one person on earth could have written it. Imagine further that the author’s unique experience is so upbeat, so full of fun and purpose, that your vicarious experience of the her life fills you with pleasure. And finally imagine that the author is a gifted storyteller with a keen eye for humor, enough to give you a laugh or a chuckle or at least a secret smile on virtually every page. Such a book is Lynne Seus’s The Grizzlies and Us.
Lynne is the wife and partner of Doug Seus, animal trainer extraordinaire, and acting coach for bears, wolves, raccoons, badgers and many other animals who end up co-starring with the likes of Antony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, and Eddie Murphy. Doug and Lynne’s animals have featured in some fifty feature films and scores of television dramas and documentaries. One of their grizzly bears, Bart the Bear, even made an appearance at the Academy Awards one year, with a charming introduction by Mike Myers (Google search: mike myers and bart the bear at the oscars).
The secret sauce that has made Doug and Lynne’s reputation is that they raise their animals from babies in their own home. They were often raising their human babies at the same time and photos of kids and cubs playing together show up in the book in the early going. Since bears — and in particular Kodiak grizzly bears — are the ultimate charismatic megafauna, they are the book’s particular focus.
Now wait, you might be thinking, bears are wild animals; they’re big and ferocious and dangerous and unpredictable. That’s certainly a useful way to think about them should you unexpectedly encounter one in the woods. But as the Seuses point out, bears in the wild are distracted by three terrible worries: they are hungry, they are frightened, and they are strongly aware of the disrespect shown to them by humans. The Seus’s bears have none of these worries; they are well-fed and safe, and frequently bask in respect of the people they work with, human actors and film crews. That respect comes from the quality of their work. They are acting pros, and recognized as such by human pros. When the bears nail a scene, and are praised for it, they do something that is so human you might have thought it was beyond any bear’s inclinations: they smile.
I’ve read The Grizzlies and Us three times now, three of the most enjoyable reads of the last year.
Lynne is the wife and partner of Doug Seus, animal trainer extraordinaire, and acting coach for bears, wolves, raccoons, badgers and many other animals who end up co-starring with the likes of Antony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, and Eddie Murphy. Doug and Lynne’s animals have featured in some fifty feature films and scores of television dramas and documentaries. One of their grizzly bears, Bart the Bear, even made an appearance at the Academy Awards one year, with a charming introduction by Mike Myers (Google search: mike myers and bart the bear at the oscars).
The secret sauce that has made Doug and Lynne’s reputation is that they raise their animals from babies in their own home. They were often raising their human babies at the same time and photos of kids and cubs playing together show up in the book in the early going. Since bears — and in particular Kodiak grizzly bears — are the ultimate charismatic megafauna, they are the book’s particular focus.
Now wait, you might be thinking, bears are wild animals; they’re big and ferocious and dangerous and unpredictable. That’s certainly a useful way to think about them should you unexpectedly encounter one in the woods. But as the Seuses point out, bears in the wild are distracted by three terrible worries: they are hungry, they are frightened, and they are strongly aware of the disrespect shown to them by humans. The Seus’s bears have none of these worries; they are well-fed and safe, and frequently bask in respect of the people they work with, human actors and film crews. That respect comes from the quality of their work. They are acting pros, and recognized as such by human pros. When the bears nail a scene, and are praised for it, they do something that is so human you might have thought it was beyond any bear’s inclinations: they smile.
I’ve read The Grizzlies and Us three times now, three of the most enjoyable reads of the last year.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews