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Timothy Treadwell (April 29, 1957 – October 5, 2003), born Timothy Dexter, was an environmentalist and bear enthusiast who lived among the Coastal brown bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska for approximately 13 seasons. At the end of his thirteenth season in the park in 2003, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard (age 37) were killed and partially eaten by a brown bear. The attack was notable because of the unusual lifestyle of the victims, and the survival of an audio recording of the attack. Treadwell's life, work, and death were the subject of the 2005 documentary film, Grizzly Man.

Biography

Much of what is known of Timothy Treadwell's life is documented by Treadwell himself. Treadwell characterized himself as an aspiring actor, recovering alcoholic, drug addict, and eco-warrior. According to his personal accounts, he became involved with drugs after failing to gain the role won by Woody Harrelson in the sitcom Cheers. Treadwell claimed to his parents that he was second-choice for the role, but this has not been independently verified.

Interest in bears

After several visits to Alaska in the early 1990’s, Treadwell became interested in bears and, in the last 5 years of his life, documented many of his experiences and interactions with bears via home video. Treadwell attributed his recovery from addiction to his relationship with bears.

By 2001, Treadwell became notable enough to receive extensive media attention both on television and in environmental circles. Through his videos, he became known for attempting to create personal relationships with the bears he worked with.

As an activist, he actively communicated with the public, including traveling throughout the United States to educate school children 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, with Jewel Palovak, of the book Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska, where he described his adventures on the Alaskan Peninsula.

Treadwell, along with his friends Jewel Palovak, and former ] Jonathan Byrne founded Grizzly People, a grassroots organization devoted to protecting bears and preserving their wilderness habitat. Despite the organization's name, Treadwell did not associate with grizzly bears, a term properly applied only to brown bears that live farther inland.

Death

In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, visited Katmai National Park in Alaska. Treadwell, who never carried any means of defense against bear attacks, chose to set his campsite near a salmon stream where bears commonly feed in the fall. Treadwell was in the park later in the year than usual, at a time when bears fight to gain as much fat as possible before winter, and limited food supplies cause them to be more aggressive than in other months.

On October 6, 2003, Treadwell and Huguenard’s bodies were discovered by the Kodiak air taxi pilot who arrived at their campsite to retrieve them from their trip. A large elderly male bear protecting the campsite was killed by park rangers while they attempted to retrieve the bodies. A second adolescent bear was killed a short time later after it charged the park rangers. A necropsy showed that the first animal had consumed parts of the couples' remains. This bear is not believed to be one of the bears Treadwell usually encountered, though this point is disputed.

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.

Legacy

Treadwell's methods were generally thought unsound by bear experts and public alike. He named many of the bears he encountered and often moved close enough to them that he could touch them and interact with them on a personal level.

Many wildlife experts objected to his methods, believing that his attitude toward the bears was too cavalier, that he blatantly ignored well-known dangers of working with bears, and that he dangerously anthropomorphized them. Experts also believe that he inadvertently endangered the animals by habituating them to humans, thus increasing the likelihood of dangerous encounters in the future. His death by bear attack is seen by some as a natural conclusion of his methods of interacting with bears.

His critics also note that while Treadwell believed that he was protecting bears, control experts have stated that incidents of poaching in the area were low and did not affect the population level. However, according to the "Grizzly People" organization he founded, five bears were poached in the year after his death, while none had been poached while he was present in Katmai . This last point is disputed.

In 2005, director Werner Herzog released Grizzly Man, a documentary about Treadwell's work with wildlife in Alaska, which aired on the Discovery Channel and is frequently rerun. It also included interviews with people who knew him, Treadwell's own footage, and his appearance on David Letterman. Grizzly Man is generally considered to have a critical take on Treadwell, his methods and his character; many people say that Grizzly Man made Treadwell look mentally unbalanced.

External links

• Grizzly People - Website of Treadwell's bear activist group
• "Wildlife author killed, eaten by bears he loved" - Anchorage Daily News, October 8, 2003
• "Treadwell: 'Get out here. I'm getting killed'" - Anchorage Daily News, October 9, 2003
• "Biologist believes errors led to attack" - Anchorage Daily News, October 10, 2003
• Grizzly Man, at the Internet Movie Database
• Night of the Grizzly - An expert nature guide's analysis of the attack.
• The Myth of Timothy Treadwell - First-hand account of encounters with Timothy Treadwell in Katmai

• American environmentalists
• 1957 births
• 2003 deaths
• Bear enthusiasts
• Alternative journalism