Ex-Hippy, Eaten by Bear, Live on Tape

Timothy Treadwell photographed this bear on an Alaskan trip. He had lived
among the Alaskan bears every summer for the last 13 years. A bush pilot
discovered
the bodies of Treadwell and his girlfriend at their campsite on Monday. (Timothy
Treadwell photo)

Timothy Treadwell was a typical aimless New York wastrel of my generation
who ended up in California surfing and doing drugs, until a Speedball
overdose in the late 80’s sent him to Alaska to try to get all the
shit out of his system.

Not even he suspected the spiritual affinity to the great brown bears
(there are 30-40 thousand of them in Alaska) that turned him into a modern
day Grizzly Adams.

Actually he was more like a bear version
of John Lilly, who lived with dolphins in the 70’s. Treadwell camped,
played, ate and slept with the
powerful, up to 500 lb creatures who can kill a person instantly with
one swat of one enormous paw.

Of course, academic and professional conservationists bristled at his
"unscientific" approach to bear preservation.  They felt
the animals merely tolerated his presence, and he contributed little
to the
body of knowledge about them. And they warned he was unrealistic about
the danger he was in.  Turns out they had a point.

"He was out there for 13 years, and it was probably a combination
of skill and luck, and the luck ran out," said Louisa Willcox, a
friend of Treadwell’s and director of the Wild Bears Project for the
Natural Resources Defense Council.

This past Sunday, Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, 37, were
mauled to death by an old male bear outside their tent in Katmai National
Park in Alaska.

Now a horrific audiotape has surfaced with a live recording of Treadwell
providing lunch for one of his ursarian buddies. A video camera was found
at the campsite. The attack was recorded on the last three minutes of the
tape, but there is only audio. Investigators
believe that Huguenard was inside the tent when Treadwell ran into the
bear, and that for some reason he may have been wearing a voice-activated
microphone.

According to Alaska state troopers, the tape begins with Treadwell screaming
that he is being attacked. "Come out here; I’m being killed out here," Treadwell
said.

"Play dead!" Huguenard yelled in reply. She then urged him to "fight
back."

He asks her to get a pan and to come hit the bear. And then the tape ends.

from The
Los Angeles Times