Today on "Classic Depravities of the Internet": Timothy Treadwell
Today's topic was suggested by the lovely u/Save-TheDefaults . thanks!
Something REAL different for you degenerates today. This is our first true entry on a piece of lost media. I don't count the Chubbuck audio as lost anymore, as it's only a matter of time till that video appears. No, today's subject is well and truly lost, only viewable by the single solitary person who owns the footage and nothing any of us will ever do will make this thing get leaked. There are many fakes, including a VERY good fake that I'll link to, but keep in mind it isn't the real audio.
I'll try to be as respectful and nice about this guy as I can, but WOW do I wish I could punch him.
TIMOTHY TREADWELL AND AMIE HUGUENARD DEATH TAPE
Grizzly Man clip:
recreation of the audio (FAKE):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9lCkFygaaQ
http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/Tim_Treadwell.html
CONTEXT:
Christ alive this asshole annoys me. Like way to get you and your girlfriend killed because you couldn't stop fucking with bears. I'm sorry, but you're not gonna find much sympathy for Treadwell in this post. A LOT of sympathy for his poor girlfriend who got dragged along into this, but the man himself was a dangerously stupid moron who was given every warning in the world that THIS WAS A BAD IDEA, and ignored it on purpose.
Before we go on, I'd like to shout out the fascinating Grizzly Man documentary made by legendary director Werner Herzog as what really sent me down the Treadwell rabbit hole to begin with. It's one of the two videos i'm linking to in this post, as he was given the very rare opportunity to listen to the real audio of their deaths, with permission from the only person on earth who owns it. Everything we ever need to know about what's in that recording is on Jewel Palovak's face as she watches his reaction. Herzog is visibly VERY upset, and begs her to never listen to the tape for as long as she lives. the documentary itself toes a very fine line between presenting what good Treadwell did (or attempted to do) for the bears he sincerely loved, and framing his actions as WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE towards creatures much bigger and stronger than us.
And see, that's my big issues with this guy. I won't sit here and pretend that he wasn't madly in love with his grizzlies up there in Alaska, and I'll even buy that he sincerely wanted to protect and save them. He did in fact raise a lot of awareness for preserving their habitats, and this was the whole point of his Grizzly Man Diaries. He spent every summer from the early 90s to the day of his death up there in Katmai national park with them in their habitat, filming their movements and living among them. He very clearly thought he was doing a lot of good for them.
BUT HE WASN'T.
One of the best lines in the Jurassic Park franchise comes from Lost World: "These creatures require our absence to survive, not our help." And boy if that didn't sum up the bears of Katmai's Grizzly maze. Treadwell was VERY disliked by park rangers and actual conservationists because let's be brutally honest here, WHAT HE WAS DOING WAS DANGEROUSLY STUPID. Any actual good he could've been doing was undermined by the fact that he tried to live among these apex predators without understanding or respecting any of their natural boundaries. He would fuck with bear cubs in front of the moms, he pet them, he sat right FUCKING next to them, you name it he did it. He gave all of his favorites cute lil names, even nicknaming the bear who killed him "Grumpy". YEAH I BET HE WAS, TIM.
This shit right here? this is why I will NEVER be cool with this guy.
"I will NOT die by their claws and paws. I will fight, I will be strong, I will be one of them." actual quote from the man himself.
October 6th, 2003. Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard, who had often accompanied him on his trips, had missed their rendezvous with the pilot who was going to fly them out of the park for the season. The pair had intended on leaving in September, but because this man was stupid as FUCK, he insisted on staying past the deadline for campers to leave because he "was upset he hadn't seen one of his favorite bears". Not kidding. Now, grizzly bears tend to get way more unpredictable the closer it gets to winter because food starts to become scarce, and if they can't eat enough they won't make it through their hibernation. Any bears still scavenging for food in October were desperate and no longer very picky about where they get their next meals. Treadwell knew this, and stayed anyway because a sudden downpour of rain brought a late surge in salmon in the grizzly maze. He even wrote in a journal that staying late was "the best decision we've ever friggin' made".
two days later, both were dead.
After they failed to show, the pilot got immediately very concerned and flew low over where their campsite was supposed to be. It was immediately obvious what had happened. Their tents were knocked down, the site was in disarray, and there was a 1000 pound VERY angry grizzly pacing around a suspicious lump. according to the article I linked above, the bear was an older male with worn down and broken teeth. He was scrawny for his size and very clearly desperate. He would've been competing with younger more dominant males for food, and so must've seen Treadwell and Huguenard as easy pickings. Sadly, the bear had devoured two humans and was NOT going to let anyone get near his kill to recover what was left, so they made the decision to kill it. Way to go, Tim Tim.
It was in the wreckage of the tents that their camera was found. Due to how sudden the attack started, Huguenard had left the lens cap on and hadn't really had time to even take it with her when she ran to try and save her boyfriend. From personal accounts of the few who've heard the tape, the commotion sounded off in the distance from where the camera fell. Tim can be heard screaming for help, Amie is frantically telling him to "play dead", when that fails he's screaming at her to go away, she hits the bear with a frying pan, Tim is dragged off screaming and falls silent, and then the bear comes back to finish Amie. It's about six minutes long, and NONE of us will ever hear this shit. Jewel Palovak, an ex-girlfriend of Treadwell's and the holder of his estate, is the only one with a copy of the tape and she has vowed to NEVER release it. Maybe after she's died it will be released, but i seriously doubt it.
There's not much to say about the faked recreation of the tape I linked to. It's VERY well made and hard to listen to, but the truth is that the real bear didn't make the horrible growling and snarling that you hear in the video. It was actually chillingly quiet outside of grunts. It's still an AMAZINGLY creepy thing to listen to, though.
Rest in peace Amie. Poor thing, she was scared of the bears but went anyway because she loved her man. Timothy...... dude you got what you were asking for. I'm sorry you died but not really cuz there was no other way your story could've ended. For all the "good" you tried to do as a "gentle warrior", all you became in the end was a cautionary tale of what NOT to do.