Learning To Love The Grizzly Bears At Katmai National Park
Wikimedia Commons Grizzly Bears feeding at Brooks Falls in Alaska’s Katmai National Park.
At first, Amie Huguenard was wary of the apex predators, which can weigh up to 1,000 pounds. But Treadwell had charm and a passion for the bears that assuaged her fear. He even once told David Letterman that they were nothing but “party animals.”
And during their summer visits, the bears were largely docile, spending much of their days resting and feeding, helping Huguenard to feel safe around them. Although she and Treadwell were anything but.
“Amie had a kind of naïveté about her that added a real sweetness to her entire persona. At times it was easy to convince her of things that were not entirely true,” Stephen Bunch, one of Amie’s old boyfriends, wrote after her death.
“But I always felt I could trust her because she bestowed the same trust in you unconditionally.”
Still, Amie Huguenard also witnessed Treadwell’s confrontations with the National Park Service. Park rangers were concerned that Treadwell was placing himself and others in danger by approaching the bears so closely and that he was maintaining dangerous camping practices on his quest to stop poachers.
Huguenard and Treadwell were sinking deeper into some critical mistakes. Crucially, and contrary to generations of Alaskan received wisdom and wildlife expertise, Amie Huguenard and Timothy Treadwell believed that the grizzlies were becoming “[their] animals.”
“Tim would honestly die if it meant these animals could live,” Huguenard wrote.
Se encontró una videocámara que registró los gritos del final
La policía encontró una videocámara con la tapa del lente puesta que había grabado todo lo sucedido en audio.
“¡Hazte el muerto, hazte el muerto!”, se escuchaba decir a la novia de Timothy cuando el oso lo había atrapado.
“Me está matando, golpéalo con algo”, se escucha decir a Timothy.
Su novia golpeó varias veces al oso con una sartén, pero no obtuvo éxito alguno.
Los pilotos encontraron a los osos 'comiendo' los restos
Tras la llegada de varios policías, emprendieron la búsqueda de Timothy y su novia. Cuando a lo lejos divisaron a un oso, el cual estaba comiendo lo que parecía ser un costillar humano.
A escasos metros se encontraba la cara de la novia de Timothy, solo su cara.
El oso intentó atacar a los policías, pero estos lo neutralizaron con sus armas.
Amie Huguenard Pays For Treadwell’s Mistake
National Park Service This 28-year old bear, dubbed Bear 141, was shot dead after park rangers found it feeding on Amie Huguenard and Timothy Treadwell’s remains.
As the summer of 2003 drew to a close, the couple prepared to head home to California. But when Treadwell argued with a ticket agent over the cost of their flights, he decided to head back to Katmai for another week with Amie Huguenard in tow.
Fall is an exceptionally risky time to be around bears of all species, as they can become aggressive in their search for additional food to build up the fat reserves needed to survive hibernation. On October 1, Huguenard described a fight between bears over dwindling food supplies, and wrote that “seeing them claw, bite, and growl at each other made all of my fears come flooding back.”
The last sounds captured on the six minutes of tape were her screams before she too was carried off by the grizzly bear and killed.
National Park Service Pilot Willy Fulton assumed that Huguenard and Treadwell’s tent had been flattened in preparation for their departure.
Near the tent, they found Treadwell’s severed head and an arm. The body on which the bear had been feeding was that of Amie Huguenard. In the stomach of the bear they’d shot were other human body parts. And exactly why Treadwell chose to return to Katmai so late in the year, and why Huguenard chose to follow him, has never been explained.