Timothy Treadwell

Treadwell's life, work, and death were the subject of Werner Herzog's critically acclaimed documentary film Grizzly Man (2005).

Timothy William Dexter was born in on April 29, 1957, Mineola, Long Island, New York, one of five children of Val Dexter and Carol Ann (née Bartell). He attended Connetquot High School, where he was the swimming team's star diver. He was very fond of animals and kept a squirrel named Willie as a pet. In an interview in Grizzly Man (2005), his parents say he was an ordinary young man until he went away to college. He attended Bradley University on a swimming and diving scholarship. There, he claimed to be a British orphan and on other occasions claimed that he was from Australia. Following two years on the dive team, where he set the university's three-meter springboard records, he eventually dropped out of school. After college, Treadwell moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and appeared on an episode of the dating show Love Connection. His father said Treadwell "spiraled down" and developed an alcohol abuse disorder after he lost the role of Woody Boyd to Woody Harrelson in the sitcom Cheers. In 1987, he legally changed his surname from Dexter to Treadwell, a name from his mother's family that he had used informally for some years.

In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend, physician assistant Amie Huguenard (born October 23, 1965, in Buffalo, New York), visited Katmai National Park on the Alaskan Peninsula across Shelikof Strait from Kodiak Island. In Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog states that Treadwell had written in his diaries that Huguenard feared bears and felt very uncomfortable in their presence. Her final journal entries indicated that she wanted to be away from Katmai. Treadwell set his campsite near a salmon stream where wild bears commonly feed in autumn. He was in the park later in the year than normal, at a time when bears attempt to gain as much fat as possible before winter. Food was scarce that autumn, causing the bears to be even more aggressive than usual. Treadwell and Huguenard had planned to leave the park at his usual time of year, and had returned to Kodiak on September 26 to store their gear for the season and catch a connecting flight to return to their home in California. After an argument with the airline ticketer over the price of altering his return ticket, Treadwell and Huguenard made the decision to return to their campsite on September 29 for an additional week. Treadwell also wanted to locate a favorite female brown bear about which he was concerned. The bears he was familiar with during the summer had already gone into torpor, and bears from other parts of the park that did not know Treadwell were moving into the area. Some of the last footage taken by Treadwell hours before his death includes video of a bear diving into the river repeatedly for a piece of dead salmon. He mentioned in the footage that he did not feel entirely comfortable around that particular bear. In Grizzly Man, Herzog speculates on whether Treadwell filmed the very bear who killed him. Around noon on Sunday, October 5, 2003, Treadwell spoke with an associate in Malibu, California, by satellite phone; he mentioned no problems with any bears. The next day, October 6, Willy Fulton, a Kodiak air taxi pilot, arrived at Treadwell's and Huguenard's campsite to pick them up but found the area abandoned, except for a bear, and contacted the local park rangers. The couple's mangled remains were discovered quickly upon investigation. Treadwell's disfigured head, partial spine and right forearm and hand, with his wristwatch still on, were recovered a short distance from the camp. Huguenard's partial remains were found next to the torn and collapsed tents, partially buried in a mound of twigs and soil. A large male bear (tagged Bear 141) protecting the campsite was killed by park rangers during their attempt to retrieve the bodies. A second adolescent bear was also killed a short time later when it charged the park rangers. An on-site necropsy of Bear 141 revealed human body parts, such as fingers and limbs. The younger bear was consumed by other animals before it could be necropsied. In the 85-year history of Katmai National Park, this was the first known incident of a person being killed by a bear. A video camera recovered at the site proved to have been operating during the attack, but police said that the six-minute tape contained only voices and cries as a brown bear mauled Treadwell to death. The tape begins with Treadwell yelling that he is being attacked. "Come out here; I'm being killed out here," he screams. The fact that the tape contained only sound led troopers to believe the attack might have happened while the camera was stuffed in a duffel bag or during the dark of night. In Grizzly Man, filmmaker Herzog claims that the lens cap of the camera was left on, suggesting that Treadwell and Huguenard were in the process of setting up for another video sequence when the attack happened. The camera had been turned on just before the attack but recorded only six minutes of audio before running out of tape. This, however, was enough time to record the bear's initial attack on Treadwell and his agonized screams, its retreat after Huguenard tells Treadwell to play dead and when she attacked it, and its return to carry Treadwell off into the forest. Tom Smith, a research ecologist with the Alaska Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, declared that Treadwell "...was breaking every park rule that there was, in terms of distance to the bears, harassing wildlife, and interfering with natural processes. Right off the bat, his personal mission was at odds with the park service. He had been warned repeatedly." Referring to Treadwell's death, Smith concluded, "It's a tragic thing, but it's not unpredictable."

Grizzly Man (2005), directed by Werner Herzog, is a documentary about Treadwell's work with wildlife in Alaska. Released theatrically by Lions Gate Films, it later was telecast on the Discovery Channel. Treadwell's own footage is featured, along with interviews with people who knew him. Although Herzog praises Treadwell's video footage, he disagrees with his view of nature as harmonious. Treadwell's anthropomorphic treatment of wild animals is apparent in the documentary. The Grizzly Man Diaries is an eight-episode miniseries that premiered on August 29, 2008, on Animal Planet and is a spin-off of Grizzly Man. Produced by Creative Differences, the series chronicles the last decade of Treadwell's life with his diary entries, footage, and photographs he took during his expeditions. Diary Of The Grizzly Man is a three-episode miniseries that premiered on August 21, 2008. It was produced by Jason Carey, Erik Nelson, and Jewel Palovak. It uses primarily original footage taken by Treadwell, supplemented by his diary entries that are read by a narrator.