| 1 | Bears saved him from booze and drugs |
The story of the bear whisperer began on April 29th 1957, when Timothy Dexter was born in New York as the 3rd of 5 children. By his teenage years, he was a troubled child, partying hard and once getting so drunk that he smashed up the family car. By adulthood, he had adopted his mother’s maiden name to become Timothy Treadwell, giving an official explanation that he liked the tip-of-your-tongue alliteration of it. He moved to Long Beach in south California and drifted through a series of restaurant and bartending jobs, while nursing acting ambitions.
According to his father, Timothy slid downhill when he missed out on the part of Woody Boyd in the sitcom Cheers to Woody Harrelson. He began to make bizarre claims, such as being a British orphan who grew up in Australia, even faking an Australian accent.
Rock bottom arrived in the late 1980s, when Treadwell overdosed on cocaine and heroin. Narrowly avoiding death, he sought help from a Vietnam veteran called Terry that he had grown close to, who strongly recommended a visit to the pristine wilderness of Alaska. Terry probably believed that an excursion into nature would clear the troubled young man’s head, but here, Treadwell found his calling. In 1989, he devoted his life to the protection of bears. In his book Among Grizzlies, he attributed his recovery from drug and alcohol addiction solely to his relationship with bears.
| 2 | Treadwell’s strategies |
Timothy Treadwell claimed to be on a one man mission to protect the grizzly bear population from cruel poachers and interfering governments. To mingle with his bear soulmates, he chose the Katmai coast of Alaska, famous for its heavy brown bear population. He shifted his camp around, starting with the “big green” in Hallo Bay during mid summer. Flanked by mountains, this massive, grassy open space is a famous bear hub, so rich in grassy sedges and salmon that 5 to 6 bears can usually be seen at once. Treadwall called it “the sanctuary”, and captured much of his best bear footage here, including the legendary pronouncements that formed the opening scene of the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man: “I will not die at their claws and paws. I will fight. I’ll be strong. I’ll be one of them. I will be the master. Still a kind warrior!“. Treadwell ranted against the park rangers who supposedly only flew over the park twice a year, claiming to be a persecuted, unjustly mocked man who only wanted to protect animals and educate kids.
In autumn, he transported his camp to Kaflia Bay, an area of thick wilderness home to the so called “grizzly maze”. This was a series of well-trodden paths, made by years of grizzly bears returning to their old feeding sites. The chances of encountering bears here were nearly 100%. Treadwell wisely chose the feeding season, where he could spend weeks every year watching bears getting fat on salmon by the pristine Alaskan waters.
In the early 2000s, Amie Huguenard read his book Among Grizzlies and became an admirer. After contacting the bear whisperer, she became his girlfriend too, and in 2003, she spent her first full season with him. With deadly consequences…
| 3 | The legend of Treadwell |
Every year from 1990 to 2003, Timothy Treadwell returned to Alaska to spend weeks living among his brown bear brothers and sisters. His passion for bears led him to film hundreds of hours worth of footage, and even found an organisation called Grizzly People. He claimed to have a special connection with bears, and gave each one names. Two his favourites were called Rowdy and Ed, an old grumpy bear which refused to make friends was dubbed Ollie, and other names include Mr. Grinch, Hatchet, Downey, Tabitha, Aunt Melissa, Demon, and Sargent Brown.
As Treadwell returned to Alaska’s Kaflia bay year after year and the bears did likewise, they began to recognise him. Treadwell would sit amongst the bears with a big smile on his face while they postured and gorged on salmon. The mothers even allowed Treadwell to play with her cubs by the water, which he captured vivid footage of.
Treadwell foresaw a future when mankind and animals could live in harmony. In 2001, Treadwell appeared on the David Letterman show and declared that brown bears were “mainly harmless party animals”.
Some say it’s pure luck that Treadwell escaped harm for 13 years straight. Others say that he was actually far shrewder and more cautious than his flamboyant movie star ramblings suggested. A friend of Treadwell’s called Louisa Willcox claimed that “he also had a magic with the bears. There isn’t anything else to explain it with. He was a bear whisperer“.
| 4 | He was a serial rule breaker |
From 1994 to 2003, Tim Treadwell gained six citations for rule-breaking, including altercations with other visitors, wildlife harassment, and failing to move his camp every 5 days. Park records showed that Treadwell was issued a citation in 1998 for storing an ice chest filled with food in his camp. One time, he was ordered by park rangers to remove a portable generator from his camp.
Treadwell never set up an electric fence around his camp, whereas bear researchers always put up a portable electric fence. In Katmai national park, guns are forbidden, but Timothy Treadwell wouldn’t even carry the perfectly legal bear spray. In his book Among Grizzlies, he claimed to have sprayed one bear in the face in previous years, but felt so regretful about the bear’s agony that he had never brought a can since.
One time, Treadwell was summoned to a coffeehouse with Katmai park superintendent Deb Liggett, who threatened to petition the US magistrate to legally ban him from Katmai if he kept violating the rules.
When he stumbled across the path of guided tours by rangers, he was said to mimic the bears’ behaviour, watching from a distance, then fleeing behind a bush. Treadwell dove ever deeper into his escape from civilisation, becoming more like the bears he admired, becoming grizzly in spirit. In the early years, attempts to communicate with the “bear whisperer” went unreciprocated, and Grizzly Man shows him interpreting friendly messages scrawled on logs for him (“see you next year”) with a paranoid angle. That said, when talking to touring groups of schoolkids, he was said to become gentle and childlike.
| 5 | His final season |
2003 would be the first time that Amie Huguenard spent the majority of the season with her boyfriend in Alaska. The duo established their normal camp at “the sanctuary” in Hallo Bay in late June, before Amie returned to California for two weeks. In late September, Amie returned just in time for Treadwell’s departure to the grizzly maze by Kaflia bay, airlifted by his loyal friend Willie Fulton. Before Willie flew away on September 29th 2003, Treadwell handed him a letter addressed to Bill Sims, owner of the Newhalen Lodge near Katmai park, which mentioned that “a few bears at his camp were more aggressive than usual”. In his own diary, Treadwell wrote that Amie would not be returning next winter, believing that he was hell-bent on destruction. Nevertheless, after establishing their campsite next to a busy salmon stream, Treadwell and Aime stayed at Kaflia bay a week longer than planned, as Treadwell couldn’t bear to leave without meeting a favourite female who hadn’t arrived yet.
This decision may have been his undoing, as later in October, the schools of salmon in the rivers get thinner and thinner. The remaining bears are forced to compete for food, inflating their aggression levels. Furthermore, food was particularly scarce during the entire fall of 2003. In Amie’s diary, she wrote that she was frightened by the presence of bears and wished to leave Katmai National Park as quickly as possible.
| 6 | A scene of eerie quiet |
On October 5th, Treadwell had rung Willie Fulton to request extraction, telling him to land his float plane on the beach the next day and pick them up. At 2.00PM on October 6th, Fulton touched down on Kaflia Bay beach and stepped out into a rainy and foggy Alaskan morning, with poor visibility.
Almost immediately, he knew that the atmosphere was wrong. Futon believed that he could see Treadwell shaking out a tarp in the distance, but when he yelled, no response came back. So Fulton started up a well-trodden path through the bushes, heading directly towards the campsite by the salmon river.
About 3 quarters of the way up, his instincts all screamed at him at once to turn back. Returning to his float plane, he turned around to witness one of the meanest, gnarliest bears he had ever laid eyes on, walking down the very path he had just absconded: “just the meanest looking thing”. He had witnessed this same gnarly bear from above on previous air flights.
Fulton then took off, and flew over the campsite 15-20 times to spook the bear away, but on one of those flights, he observed the same bear feeding from the distinctive shape of a human ribcage.
| 7 | The rangers reach the camp |
Within 3 hours, backup had arrived at Kaflia bay. Ranger Gilliland, ranger Ellis, and ranger Dalrymple questioned Fulton by the lake, who wasn’t 100% sure, but 99% sure that something was wrong. All 4 started up the dreaded hillside path once more, and as they emerged on the crest, they witnessed the same, grizzled, gnarly bear that Fulton had encountered, standing 20 feet anyway.
Suddenly, the bear was charging, and when a chorus of bellowing shouts failed to halt its progress, ranger Ellis stood and fired his 40 cal. handgun 11 times. Rangers Dalrymple and Gilliland were carrying 12 gauge shotguns, and got 5 blasts in apiece. 12 feet away, the bear dropped to the floor, before dying within 10 seconds. As the rangers tentatively approached, Fulton growled “I want to look that bear in the eyes”, before insisting that this was the bear who had stalked him hours earlier.
By now, they were confident that something had happened to Treadwell and Aime. They found both tents collapsed, and noticed a pair of fingers protruding from the rubble. Soon a couple more bears approached, which the foursome managed to deter by shouting “get out!”. Then, close to the tents, the found Timothy Treadwell. His head was intact, with a frozen grimace. But it was connected only to a small piece of spine, and nearby were his right arm and hand, complete with wristwatch.
The fingers, meanwhile, turned out to belong to Amie. In death, her face was unblemished as though sleeping, but like Timothy, her body was mostly gone. Both Treadwell and Amie’s shoes were tucked away neatly.
| 8 | What happened during the attack |
Another artefact was discovered in this search. It was a poisoned chalice – a videocamera – and investigation by the Alaskan State Troopers revealed that the last 6 minutes of film captured the bear attack. The camera lens cap had been on, so only the audio was available. While making Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog was given permission by Jewel Palovak to listen to it. Detailed descriptions have emerged, and the first sound of the recording is Amie sounding surprised and asking “if he’s still out there”. After a gap, Treadwell suddenly screams “get out here! I’m being killed out here”. A tent unzips, before Amie implores him to play dead.
Amidst this, there is a constant background soundtrack of rain beating against the tent. The bear evidently leaves soon after, as Timothy and Amie begin debating whether it will come back. But evidently, it did: Tim’s next cries are “hit the bear”. The sound of a frying pan rings out, before Treadwell moans: “Amie get away, get away, go away”. He has clearly accepted his fate, hoping to save his girlfriend.
She apparently stayed behind, however, as her screams only grow louder and more intense, before the audio cuts off. Tim’s screams are the opposite, fading away gradually as though being dragged away from the tent and into the undergrowth. Throughout the six minute recording, the bear is mostly silent, making only occasional grunts and growls.
Two days later, on October 8th, an autopsy of the shot bear revealed human remains in its stomach, alongside torn pieces of clothing.
| 9 | Smarter than his reputation |
Grizzly Man is full of wacky moments like when Treadwell zooms in on an immobile bumblebee fixed on a plant. “Isn’t this so sad? A bumble-bee expired while it was doing the pollen thing. It’s beautiful” he cries in mourning. Suddenly, the bee moves again: “Wait! The bee just moved! Is it . . . is it just SLEEPING?”. He repeatedly talks to grizzly bears in a child-like voice and repeats “I love you, I love you” to them under his breath, as though the bears were avowed readers of the Oxford dictionary.
Yet contemporaries of Treadwell testify that he had a practical streak as well. He was wary of certain bears, including one called Demon that hung around Kaflia bay, confiding in ranger Lynn Rodgers that “a guy could get killed out there”. He also mistrusted a bear called Ollie, “the big old grumpy bear”. He had tried to make friends with this grumpy bear, only to be rejected, and Willie Fulton later dubbed Ollie “a dirty rotten bear, that Tim didn’t like anyway”. Ollie was even speculated to be the gnarly bear that killed Treadwell, although the exact identity of Bear 173 is debated to this day. Quincy is another name thrown about.
John Waters of Katmai Coastal Bear Tours was a man who met Treadwell most Alaskan summers, finding him difficult at times, as though he was intruding on Treadwell’s personal space. Yet he declared that sans Vitaly Nikolayenko, another grizzly man who was coincidentally killed just weeks later in 2003, Treadwell probably had the best “bear sense” and experience of any man alive.
| 10 | The infamous death tape |
Why the camera was turned on is a mystery we will never know. Did Timothy Treadwell achieve one small victory in death, thinking that if death is imminent, then it might as well be caught on film, as the ultimate extension of his 13 year documentary? Or did Amie press the button accidentally?
One thing’s for sure – those “Treadwell attack audio recording” videos on youtube are fake as can be. One claims to be a 1m 51s “leak” of the original. It appears that some ambitious youtubers have read the “script” for the original, and spliced together their own version from their own performances and pre-existing media. In fact, a laughing sound engineer appeared on one forum, suggesting that the bear noises were from the most basic FX effects pack.
How do we know they are fake? Because Werner Herzog has confirmed it. Another flaw is supposedly that the filmmakers introduced too many cartoonish bear roars.
In Grizzly Man, Walter Herzog’s reaction to the tape was filmed, with the audio itself edited out. The grim reactions on his face say it all, and as soon as he removed the headphones, he urged Jewel Palovak (a friend who Treadwell left his entire estate to) to destroy the tape. Otherwise, he said, it would be “the white elephant in your room all your life”. He declared that he wasn’t making a “snuff movie” and wouldn’t include the audio in his documentary even if Jewel had given him permission.
Today, the audio of the attack lies in a secure white vault, untouched for years. Jewel Palovak followed Werner’s stern advice, and has never listened to it.
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