Bear enthusiast, companion fatally mauled in Katmai National Park
Pilot discovers scene of brown bear attack
By Rachel D'Oro
The Associated Press
(Published: October 7, 2003)
(Ron Engstrom / Anchorage Daily News)
A self-taught bear expert who once called Alaska's brown bears harmless party animals was one of two people fatally mauled in a bear attack in Katmai National Park and Preserve - the first known bear killings in the 4.7-million-acre park.
The bodies of Timothy Treadwell, 46, and Amie Huguenard, 37, both of Malibu, Calif., were found near Kaflia Bay on Monday when a pilot with Andrew Airways arrived to pick them up and take them to Kodiak, Alaska State Troopers said. The park is on the Alaska Peninsula.
Treadwell, co-author of "Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears in Alaska," spent more than a dozen summers living alone with Katmai bears, and videotaping them. Information on Huguenard was not immediately available.
The Andrew Airways pilot contacted troopers in Kodiak and the National Park Service in King Salmon after he saw a brown bear, possibly on top of a body, in the camp Monday afternoon.
Park rangers encountered a large, aggressive male brown bear when they arrived at the campsite and killed it. Investigators then found human remains buried by a bear near the campsite, which was in a brushy area with poor visibility.
No weapons were found at the scene, Park Service spokeswoman Jane Tranel said. Firearms are prohibited in that part of the park.
The remains and the entire campsite were packed out Monday and transported to Kodiak on the Andrew Airways flight.
As the plane was being loaded, another aggressive bear approached and was killed by park rangers and troopers. The bear was younger, possibly a 3-year-old, according to Bruce Bartley, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game office in King Salmon.
The bodies were flown to the state medical examiner's office for autopsy.
Dean Andrew, owner of Andrew Airways, said the pilot was too upset to comment. The company had been flying Treadwell out to Katmai for 13 years and Huguenard for the last couple of years. Andrew said Treadwell as an experienced outdoorsman.
"We were all good friends with him," he said. "We haven't had time to deal with it."
Treadwell was known for his brazen confidence around bears. He often got so close he could touch them. He gave them names. Once he was filmed crawling along the ground singing as he approached a sow and two cubs.
Over the years, Park Service officials, biologists and others expressed concern about his safety and the message he was sending out.
"At best he's misguided," Deb Liggett, superintendent at Katmai and Lake Clark national parks, told the Anchorage Daily News in 2001. "At worst he's dangerous. If Timothy models unsafe behavior, that ultimately puts bears and other visitors at risk."
That same year, Treadwell was a guest on the "Late Show with David Letterman," describing Alaska brown bears as mostly harmless "party animals." He said he felt safer living among the bears than running through New York's Central Park.
In his book, Treadwell said he decided to devote himself to saving grizzlies after a drug overdose, followed by several close calls with brown bears in early trips to Alaska. He said those experiences inspired him to give up drugs, study bears and establish a nonprofit bear-appreciation group, called Grizzly People.
"He's got a lot of great wildlife shots that are absolutely not captive," said Curt Grosjean, a Treadwell friend and manager of The Darkroom, a Los Angeles custom photographic laboratory that did work for Treadwell. "Everything that Timothy was shooting was in Alaska and out in the wild. He was getting pretty close to those bears. He knew what he was doing was dangerous."
Grizzly and brown bears are the same species, but brown is used to describe bears in coastal areas and grizzly for bears in the Interior.
Treadwell and Huguenard were videotaping bears at the Kaflia Bay lakes, usually not frequented by visitors, according to Park Service spokesman John Quinley. He said bears are attracted to the area by a late run of salmon passing through lakes.
The site is 60 air miles east of Brooks Camp, the best known and most frequently visited bear-watching site in the park. Although it is reachable only by float plane or boat, as many as 300 people a day visit in July, when scores of bears congregate at the Brooks River as sockeye salmon make their way to spawning grounds.
"July is prime-time for bears there," Quinley said. "It's a worldwide destination."
In the mid-1980s, a brown bear mauled the body of a visitor who drowned, but this week's attacks are the first known bear killings in the park, Quinley said, noting that the worst fears about Treadwell came to pass.
"He demonstrated behavior that was dangerous for him and ultimately dangerous for the bears," he said. "The most tragic thing of all is that two people are dead."
Rangers were unable to return to the site Tuesday because of poor weather, but planned to go out Wednesday if conditions improved, Bartley said.
