Featured Image Credit: Lionsgate Films
Topics: Animals
Jess Battison
Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing.
Back in October 2003, Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were killed by the very thing he loved the most.
The documentary maker was nicknamed the ‘Grizzly Man’ due to his absolute adoration for bears.
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He had a 13-year-long tradition of flying out to Alaska every summer to mingle with the animals. But on that fatal year, tragedy struck and his harrowing final words were chillingly caught on camera.
During the camping trips, Timothy would chat to, play with and even touch the bears as he believed he was one of them and they were just simply misunderstood.
Apparently, he was repeatedly warned of the dangers by his family and friends, but it didn’t stop his annual visit.
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Just hours before the couple were due to fly back home via seaplane, Timothy was mauled to death. And then, the bear turned on Amie and killed her also.
The Grizzly Man recorded all of his attacks with the bears and as the couple didn’t have time to remove the lens during the tragic attack, there was six long minutes of chilling audio captured, documenting their deaths.
It begins with Amie asking if the bear is still out there before Timothy screams: “Get out here! I’m getting killed out here!”
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The tent zipper can be heard as Amie rushes out, shouting for her boyfriend to ‘play dead’.
There’s a whole lot of screaming and shouting as it seems the bear releases Timothy from its grip and Amie heads over to help.
But as soon as she does that, the animal apparently clamps its jaws around his head again and he starts to scream for his partner to ‘hit the bear’.
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Amie tells him to ‘fight back’ as she attacks it with a frying pan. Following a series of screams, the tape then runs out, capturing the couple’s final moments.
Willy Fulton - who was their air taxi pilot for the flight home - knew immediately what had happened when he landed at Katmai National Park.
Typically, he would find them waiting at the shore to be picked up, but instead there was an eerie silence and the 'meanest looking bear' standing on top of a pile of human remains.
The tent was found collapsed and torn alongside their unopened evening snack.
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A ranger spotted fingers and an arm in a 3ft-high mound of grass, mud and twigs, alongside some other remains. Nearby, what was left of Timothy’s head was found.
In the following years, a documentary about their death was made by Werner Herzog: Grizzly Man.