Timothy Treadwell Life of the Grizzly Man

Treadwell was born as Timothy Dexter in Long Island, New York. He attended Connetquot High School, where he achieved average grades and was the swimming team's star diver. He claimed to the public however that he was a British orphan who was born in Australia. According to his account, he became a drug addict after failing to gain the role won by Woody Harrelson in the sitcom "Cheers". It has not been verified if Treadwell was runner-up to Harrelson for the acting role.

Timothy Treadwell lived among grizzly bearsduring summer seasons for 13 years. According to his book, Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska, Treadwell survived a near-fatal heroin overdose in the late 1980s. At the urging of a friend, he traveled to Alaska to watch bears. Treadwell attributed his recovery from drug and alcohol addictions entirely to his relationship with bears. Timothy spent the early part of each season camping on the "Big Green," an open area of bear grass in Hallo Bay on the Katmai Coast. During the later part of the season he would move to Kaflia Bay and camp in an area of especially thick brush he called the "Grizzly Maze." Here the chances of crossing paths with grizzlies were much higher, since the location intersected bear trails. Treadwell was known for getting extremely close to the bears he observed, sometimes even touching them and playing with bear cubs. National Park Service Rangers said what he was really doing was harassing wildlife. Treadwell recorded over 100 hours of video footage (some of which was later used to create the documentary Grizzly Man) and a large collection of still photographs.

Treadwell claimed to be alone with the wildlife on several occasions in his videos. However his girlfriend Amie was with him at the time of his death and the documentary on him indicated she was there for his final two summers.

By 2001, Treadwell became notable enough to receive extensive media attention both on television and in environmental circles. He frequently made public appearances as an environmental activist. He traveled throughout the United States to educate school children about bears and appeared on the Discovery Channel, the "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", in which he described his adventures on the Alaska Peninsula.

Treadwell, along with his friends Palovak and former American Gladiator Jonathan Byrne, founded Grizzly People, a grassroots organization devoted to protecting bears and preserving their wilderness habitat.

Charlie Russell, who has studied bears for 42 years and raised them and lived with them in Kamchatka, Russia for a decade, wrote a lengthy response in which he criticized both Treadwell's lack of basic safety precautions such as pepper spray and electric fences (but not his close contact with bears) as well as the predictable, knee-jerk reaction to his death. He is also critical of the film "Grizzly Man"

According to the organization Treadwell founded, Grizzly People, five bears were poached in the year following his death, while none had been poached while he was present in Katmai. However, according to court records as reported by the Anchorage Daily News the guilty parties were charged with poaching wildlife along Funnel Creek in the Preserve, an area open to hunting that borders the National Park. According to several sources including Nick Jans' book, The Grizzly Maze, Treadwell only camped near the Katmai Coast, mainly in areas around Hallo Bay and Kaflia Bay, and never in or near the Preserve. The only effective way to patrol all 6,000 square miles (16,000 km2) of Katmai National Park is by airplane which is the method used by authorities to control poaching.

Treadwell'syears with the grizzlies weren't without disruption. Almost from the start, the National Park Service expressed their worries about his behavior.

According to the file kept on Treadwell by the Park Service, rangers reported he had at least six violations from 1994 to 2003. Included among these violations are: guiding tourists without a license, camping in the same area longer than the Parks Service's seven-day limit, improper food storage, wildlife harassment, and conflicts with visitors and their guides. He also frustrated authorities by refusing to install an electric fence around his camp and refusing to carry bear spray to use as a deterrent.

In 1998, park rangers issued Treadwell a citation for storing an ice chest filled with food in his tent. A separate incident involved rangers ordering him to remove a prohibited portable generator. When the Park Service imposed a new rule - often referred to as the "Treadwell Rule" - requiring all campers to move their camps at least one mile (1.6 km) every seven days, Tim initially tried to obey the order by using a small motor boat to move his camp up and down the coast. Finding this method impractical, he later hid his camp from the Park Service in stands of trees with heavy brush. Eventually, he was cited at least once for this violation.

In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, visited Katmai National Park. In the film Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog states that Amie feared bears and felt deeply uncomfortable in their presence.
Treadwellchose to set his campsite near a salmon stream where grizzlies 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 food as possible before winter, and limited food supplies cause them to be more aggressive than in other months. Food was scarce that fall, so the grizzly bears were even more aggressive than usual.

Treadwell was supposed to leave the park at his usual time of year, but he had a disagreement with the airline about his ticket and decided to stay longer in the park. The bears he had been used to during the summer had already gone into hibernation, and bears that Treadwell did not know from other parts of the park were moving into the area. The very last footage that shows Treadwellalive also shows a bear behind him; the bear had been diving into the river over and over for a piece of dead salmon. Treadwell mentions in the footage that he does not feel altogether comfortable with that grizzly bear

Around noon on Sunday, October 5, 2003, Treadwellspoke with an associate in Malibu, California by satellite phone. Treadwell mentioned no problems with any bears. The next day, October 6, the bodies of Treadwelland Huguenard were discovered by Willy Fulton, the Kodiak air taxi pilot who arrived at their campsite to pick them up. Treadwell's disfigured head, partial backbone, and right forearm/hand still wearing his wrist watch were recovered at the scene.

Huguenard's partial remains were found near the encampment, somewhat buried in a mound of twigs and dirt. A large male grizzly (tagged Bear 141) 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 revealed human body parts such as fingers and limbs. It is not clear from any evidence or the audio recording if either of these two bears killed the couple. In the 85-year history of Katmai National Park, this was the first incident of a person being killed by a bear.

A video camera was recovered at the site. According to Alaska State Trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson, no pictures were found on the tape. This fact led troopers to believe the attack might have happened while the camera was stuffed in a duffel bag or during the dark of night. The camera had been turned on at some point before the attack, presumably by Huguenard, but the camera recorded only six minutes of audio before running out of tape. The tape is now the property of Jewel Palovak and has not been released to the public. In Grizzly Man filmmaker Werner Herzog listens to the recording and then urges Palovak to destroy it. In the follow-up mini-series "The Grizzly Man Diaries", Palovak admitted she still owns the tape, but has not listened to its contents and said she hopes she never does.