Rangers find recording of fatal bear attack
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The graphic sounds of a fatal bear attack were recorded on tape, Alaska state troopers discovered Wednesday while reviewing a tape recovered near the bodies of a wildlife author and his girlfriend.
The bodies of Timothy Treadwell, 46, and Amie Huguenard, 37, were found Monday near Kaflia Bay after an air taxi pilot arrived to pick them up. The pilot contacted the National Park Service and state troopers to report that a brown bear was sitting on human remains at the campsite.
After rangers arrived, one of them shot and killed a large brown bear when it charged through the dense brush. Rangers and troopers later killed a smaller bear that was apparently stalking them.
Trooper Chris Hill said Treadwell may have been wearing a wireless microphone that was probably activated when the brown bear attacked him at Katmai National Park and Preserve. The videotape has audio only during the three-minute recording.
"They're both screaming. She's telling him to play dead, then it changes to fighting back. He asks her to hit the bear," Hill said. "There's so much noise going on. I don't know what's him and what might be an animal."
Autopsies confirmed Wednesday that bears killed the couple.
Troopers recovered video and still photography equipment as well as three hours of video footage from the site, across Shelikof Strait from Kodiak Island.
Much of the footage is close-ups of bears, for which Treadwell was well-known.
Some scenes show bears no more than a few feet from Treadwell, co-author of Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears in Alaska. Others show a more cautious Huguenard leaning away as bears come close to her on the bank of a river.
Jewel Palovak, program director of Grizzly People, an educational project devoted to bears, was the last person outside the park to talk to Treadwell. She said he called by satellite phone Sunday and talked enthusiastically about having seen his favorite bear, a fat female named Downey. "He wanted to make sure she was safe," Palovak said.
Treadwell, whom Palovak likened to Dr. Doolittle, had been in Alaska since June to shoot photos and videos of bears. Treadwell and Huguenard, both of Malibu, Calif., were supposed to arrive Tuesday night in Los Angeles.
Park service officials said they had long feared that bears would kill Treadwell.
"We all had grave concerns about what Timothy Treadwell was doing," said Joe Fowler, chief ranger and acting superintendent of Katmai National Park and Preserve.
Tom Smith, a research ecologist with the Alaska Science Center of the U.S. Geological Service, visited Katmai several years ago and watched Treadwell interact with bears.
"He was breaking every park rule that there was, in terms of distance to the bears, harassing wildlife and interfering with natural processes," Smith said Tuesday. "Right off the bat, his personal mission was at odds with the park service. He had been warned repeatedly. It's a tragic thing, but it's not unpredictable."
This Report Contains Material From the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.
