A fearless wildlife enthusiast and his girlfriend spent their final moments screaming for help as a starving grizzly bear savaged them to death, leaving behind a mangled assortment of remains and the 'worst recording ever made'.
The Final Moments
Timothy Treadwell, 46, was adamant he had forged a special bond with Alaska's most feared predators. For 13 successive summers, he lived among grizzly bears in Katmai National Park, naming them and interacting with them, despite repeated warnings about the dangerous animals.
In October 2003, his belief would cost both his life and that of his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. The couple had stayed later than normal into the season, pitching their tent close to Kaflia Bay as autumn drew in and food became scarce for the local wildlife. They were waiting for a seaplane to ferry them home when the nightmare began.
The Attack
Inside their tent while rain hammered down outside, the pair were preparing a meal. Seemingly attracted by the smell of food, a grizzly bear approached. Treadwell is believed to have hit record on a videotape to document the attack, although the audio it captured was deemed too distressing to ever be released publicly.
Alaska state troopers who heard the tape said Treadwell could be heard yelling, 'get out of here, I'm getting killed.' His terrified girlfriend begged him to play dead, then urged him to fight back. Shortly afterwards, Amie herself came under attack.
'You can hear him screaming,' state trooper Chris Hill later stated. 'She's screaming, 'Is the bear still there?' He says something to the effect that he's dying. We really didn't hear the bear at all.'
The Tape Destroyed
The recording would later be described as so harrowing that celebrated director Werner Herzog, who included Treadwell's footage in his critically lauded 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, refused to use a single second of it. 'You must never listen to this,' Herzog told Treadwell's former partner and close friend Jewel Palovak after hearing part of the tape. She eventually destroyed it, smashing it with a hammer and cutting it up with a knife. 'It felt freeing,' she said. 'Very freeing.'
The Gruesome Discovery
When rangers finally reached the campsite the following day, they were confronted with a horrific scene. The pair's tents had been ripped to pieces, shoes still placed by the entrance. Nearby was a mound of mud, grass and human limbs. Investigators found what remained of Treadwell's head, still attached to his spine, and severed limbs. Four bin bags of human remains were later recovered from the stomach of a 28-year-old male grizzly weighing close to 1,000lb.
The bear, elderly and struggling to feed due to broken teeth, was shot dead after charging officers. Investigators concluded that Treadwell's habitual practice of setting up camp in prime feeding grounds and allowing bears to venture within touching distance most likely contributed to the fatal mauling.
Remembering Treadwell
Palovak, who co-founded the grassroots organisation Grizzly People alongside Treadwell, said 'He didn't have a death wish. He wasn't stupid. He knew the dangers. He didn't want to die.' A former drug addict, Treadwell credited the bears with turning his life around and helping him along the road to sobriety. He was utterly devoted to spending time amongst the animals, meticulously documenting their behaviour, speaking to schoolchildren about the magnificent creatures and regarding himself as a protector of the bears he firmly believed were under threat from hunters and humans.
'His goal was to show people the secret life of grizzly bears,' Palovak said, 'to inspire children to fight for what they believe in, no matter how big the challenge. He always told me, 'If I die, make a kick-ass movie.' I was like, 'Oh sure, I'll do that.' But that's actually what ended up happening ... I think Grizzly Man would have been the kick-ass movie that he wanted.'
