Film director listens to 'Grizzly Man's' harrowing final moments before he was eaten alive by bear
Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing.
A film director listened to a man's final moments before he was eaten alive by bear.
As part of his documentary into the tragic events, filmmaker Werner Herzog could be seen with his hands over his face as he listened to a tape recording of Timothy Treadwell, who was killed along with his girlfriend in 2003.
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At one point, Herzog asked for the recording - which was not played in the documentary - to be turned off.
"You should never listen to this," he tells Jewel Palovak, Timothy's friend and business partner.
Jewel had played the recording to Herzog, but had never listened to it herself.
"And you must never look at the photos I've seen at the coroner's office," he added.
"I think you should not keep it, you should destroy it."
Timothy was nicknamed the ‘Grizzly Man’ due to his love of bears.
The animal lover would fly out to Alaska every year to work with the bears, but unfortunately in 2003, he was killed by the animals he loved the most.
During his 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.
One day, just hours before Timothy and his girlfriend, Annie, were due to fly back home via seaplane, the documentary maker was mauled to death. And then, the bear turned on Annie and killed her also.
Timothy would record his interactions with the bears, but during this particular incident, he didn't have time to remove the lens.
The audio, however, was captured.
It begins with Annie asking if the bear is still out there before Timothy screams: “Get out here! I’m getting killed out here!”
The tent zipper can be heard as Annie rushes out, shouting for her boyfriend to ‘play dead’.
The pair can be heard screaming and shouting as it seems the bear releases Timothy from its grip and Annie 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’.
Annie 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.
Tragically, the pair's remains were later found.
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 also discovered.
Lucy Devine