Timothy Treadwell

Timothy Treadwell (April 29, 1957 – October 5, 2003) was an environmentalist and bear enthusiast who lived among the Coastal brown bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska for approximately thirteen seasons. At the end of his thirteenth season in the park, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard (Age 37) were fatally attacked and partially eaten by a grizzly bear.

Biography

Even before his death, Treadwell had actively communicated with the public, which included traveling the United States to educate schoolchildren about bears, and appearing on the Discovery Channel, Late Show with David Letterman, and Dateline NBC to discuss his experiences. He was also a co-author of the book Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska, where he described his adventures on the Alaskan Peninsula.

Treadwell founded Grizzly People, a grassroots organization devoted to protecting bears and preserving their wilderness habitat. Despite the organization's name, Treadwell himself did not associate with grizzly bears, a term properly applied only to brown bears that live farther inland.

Treadwell has been described as funny and fun to be around, with a creative but sometimes strange imagination.

Personal life

Treadwell was a former actor, recovering drug addict, and self-described eco-warrior. He became involved with drugs early after failing to gain a role in the sitcom Cheers. He eventually recovered and got involved with bears after several trips to Alaska, which he videotaped and photographed the last five years of his life.

Treadwell's methods were controversial among authorities and public alike. He named many of the bears he encountered and thought he had developed such a close relationship with several of them that he could safely touch them. Many wildlife experts objected to his methods, believing that his attitude toward the bears was too cavalier and that he dangerously anthropomorphized them.

It is also possible that he inadvertently endangered the very animals he loved by habituating them to people, thus increasing the likelihood of dangerous encounters in the future. His critics also note that while Treadwell believed that he was protecting the bears from poachers, wildlife control experts have stated that incidence of poaching in the area was in fact low and did not affect the population level.

Death

Due to special circumstance, Treadwell was in the park later in the year than usual. At this time of the year the bears are fighting to gain as much fat as possible before winter, and with food in limited supplies they tend to be more aggressive than in the previous months. Treadwell, who never carried any means of defence against bear attacks, chose to setup his campsite near a salmon stream where the bears would feed; a place he himself claimed to be very dangerous.

Although evidence strongly suggest the couple was killed by one (or several) bears, authorities are hesitant to speculate on the actual events of the couples' death, emphasizing that there were no witnessess. A large male bear seen feeding on the carcasses was shot dead by park rangers; necropsy showed that the animal had consumed parts of the couples' remains. That individual bear was supposedly not one of the bears Treadwell usually encountered, though this point is disputed.

Park rangers had warned Treadwell before his death that they did not want to have to harm bears to come to his rescue. That had always been one of his greatest concerns, as he was known to have said to be willing to die for the bears, fighting for their existence. Nevertheless, two bears were killed in the effort to retrieve Treadwell's remains and those of his companion; according to his close friends, this would have upset him greatly.

A video camera, with the lens cap in place, was recovered at the site. The video camera had been turned on at some point during the fatal attack, presumably by Huguenard, but the camera only recorded six minutes of audio before running out of tape. In the documentary film Grizzly Man, director Werner Herzog listens to the audio recording while interviewing Treadwell's former girlfriend. Herzog advises her to never listen to the tape, and furthermore, asks her to destroy it in the chance of the tape haunting her for the rest of her days. According to authorites, there are no plans to ever make the recording public. Whether the tape was actually destroyed or not is unclear.

Troopers who arrived at the scene, and the coroner say that in the audio, Treadwell can be heard fighting the bear, while Huguenard yells at him to play dead (a known defense against bear attacks), and later encourages him to fight back. Treadwell can then be heard telling Huguenard to hit the bear, but the audio stops shortly afterwards. The audio recording, along with the other tapes recovered, are all intact as Treadwell's friends said that they "cannot destroy something he made."

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man, a documentary created from new interviews by director Werner Herzog and drawing from over 100 hours of the video footage shot by Treadwell during the last five years of his life, premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It was co-produced by Discovery Docs, Discovery Channel's theatrical documentary unit, and Lions Gate Films. It was released in theaters on August 12, 2005.

Discovery Channel Aired Grizzly Man on February 3, 2006 on television. Discovery Channel's 3-hour presentation of the film included a 30-minute companion special that delved deeper into Treadwell's relationship with the bears and addressed controversies, notably the view of Treadwell's friends that the documentary gave an inaccurate impression that Treadwell was mentally unbalanced, as well as being overly accepting of the authorities' position that there was no bear poaching problem. The special also dealt with claims of fictitious interviews in the documentary.

Upcoming film

According to the website Hollywood.com, actor Leonardo di Caprio has agreed to star in a biopic of Treadwell, titled The Man Who Loved Grizzlies.

See also

• Christopher McCandless

External links

• Grizzly People
• Alaska Daily News
• [1]

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