8. Audio Recording of Timothy Treadwell Bear Attack - Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell was an eco-minded naturalist and all around bear enthusiast. He became renown for his work living with, documenting and teaching about wild grizzly bears. Every year he would travel to the remote regions of Katmai National Park in Alaska, where he would camp amongst these mighty bears ...up until both he and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by one in 2003, at least. That year, he decided to bring his girlfriend Amie Huguenard along as a companion. Normally, they would have headed back into civilisation as the fall season reigned in, but Treadwell decided to prolong his stay in the park by a week, hoping that he would cross paths with his favourite female bear. This turned out to be a deadly decision: bears tend to become more aggressive as winter approaches and food becomes more scarce. Treadwell failed to recognize this, along with the fact that other bears were moving into the area in search of food. During their extended stay, Treadwell set up camp near a stream where the bears would fish for salmon. Here he would encounter a large male grizzly that he said he felt "uncomfortable" around. He would film this bear repeatedly diving into the river, trying to retrieve dead pieces of salmon. This turned out to be the very bear that would later attack the couple's campsite, killing them both in the process. As a naturalist filmmaker, Treadwell had been documenting his experiences with the bears with a camera (which he would then take and edit into films, which he utilized to teach school children about grizzly bears). This camera was recording- though the lens cap was still on- throughout the entire attack, capturing the attack as an audio recording. When the air-taxi arrived to collect Treadwell and his companion, they found the camp to be empty, except for one huge grizzly. Later, they would discover the scattered remains of the couple, the destroyed campsite, and the camera. In 2005, German filmmaker Werner Herzog would use the footage shot by Treadwell to narrate his story in the film Grizzly Man. In the film, Herzog discusses the 6 minutes of audio footage that was recorded with Treadwell's camera, which included Treadwell being attacked whilst telling his girlfriend - who was attacking the bear - to run away, prior to being attacked herself. He doesn't actually play the footage for us, but does describe what he hears while listening to it himself, before recommending that it be destroyed. Today, the recording is secured in a bank vault.