For 13 years, Timothy Treadwell lived among dozens of wild bears. Then they turned on him.

Somewhere in a bank vault in the US, there is a six-minute tape documenting the death of bear enthusiast and environmentalist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard in Katmai National Park, Alaska. The tape is audio only, because the lens cap was still on the video camera when it was recording on that fateful day in October 2003.

Very few people have heard the contents of that tape, which was given to Treadwell's ex-girlfriend Jewel Palovak after his death. He had bequeathed her all his possessions. Palovak herself has never listened to it.

Aside from the police officers and investigative authorities involved, director Werner Herzog has heard the audio. Herzog wrote and directed the 2005 documentary film Grizzly Man, which recounts the life and death of Treadwell. He was given permission by Palovak to listen to the tape. Herzog did not include the audio in the documentary, but recorded Palovak's reaction while he listened.

It is confronting viewing - and all you're doing is watching someone else react to the horror of someone else listening to the sounds of two people's last moments on earth.

Watch the Grizzly Man scene with Werner Herzog and Jewel Palovak below. Post continues after video.

"Jewel, you must never listen to this," Herzog said to Palovak.

"I know, Werner, I'm never going to," she replied, her voice catching with emotion.

"And you must never look at the photos I've seen at the coroner's office," he said.

"I will never look at them," Palovak vowed.

Herzog then told Palovak to destroy the tape. But in a subsequent 2007 interview with Paste Magazine, he said it was "stupid" of him to say that to her.

"[It was] silly advice born out of the immediate shock of hearing... I mean, it's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life," Herzog said. 

"Being shocked like that, I told her, 'You should never listen to it, and you should rather destroy it. It should not be sitting on your shelf in your living room all the time.' She slept on it and decided to do something much wiser. She did not destroy it but separated herself from the tape, and she put it in a bank vault."

It's likely the audio tape of Timothy Treadwell's death will never see the light of day again. And that's probably the way it should be.

Who was Timothy Treadwell?

From a young age, Treadwell loved all animals. One summer in the 1980s, after visiting the American brown bears in Alaska, he realised he had found his calling in life - to protect the bears. They became his one true love. Treadwell wrote in his book, Among Grizzlies, that his alcoholism and drug addiction were cured due to this newfound vocation with the bears.

Every summer for 13 years, the environmentalist flew from his home in New York to Alaska to spend months camping alongside these animals and observing them in their natural habitat. The 46-year-old treated the bears as though they were his friends, and often got up close and personal with them. He often filmed his interactions with these wild animals, with footage showing him playing with cubs and actually touching big brown bears.

Treadwell tried to bring awareness to the importance of maintaining the bears' habitat by founding the organisation Grizzly People with Palovak, with whom he had a 20-year relationship. He appeared on the Discovery Channel and on shows like Dateline to talk about his experiences with the bears. It's no wonder he was called the "grizzly man".

Timothy Treadwell. Image: Grizzly Man.

While many people enjoyed following Treadwell's exploits, he was criticised by a number of park rangers and ecologists. Rangers at the national park in Alaska reported at least six violations during Treadwell's stays, including improper food storage and wildlife harassment. They repeatedly asked him to install an electric fence around his camp and carry bear spray, which he refused to do. 

The National Park Service told Treadwell that his close interaction with bears would one day prove detrimental, even fatal, but he did not listen to them.

What happened to Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard?

In October 2003, Treadwell and his physician's assistant girlfriend Huguenard were camping as usual in Katmai National Park. Even though they were due to fly out, they decided to stay an extra week.

Family and friends have said that around this time, Treadwell was more comfortable with the bears than with people. October is when bears start getting ready for winter hibernation and tend to eat as much as they can to bulk up and store fat. Treadwell knew this, yet he still decided to stay an additional week.

At around 2pm on October 6, air taxi pilot Willy Fulton arrived at the camp to pick up the couple. Yet when he arrived, it was deathly quiet and there was no sign of Treadwell or Huguenard. He spotted a big bear in the area and got back into his plane, doing a loop around the camp. As he flew overhead, Fulton saw the bear again, this time feeding on what appeared to be human parts. He immediately called the park rangers.

When the park rangers got there, they quickly found Treadwell's remains. He had been mostly eaten by the bear. Huguenard had been partially eaten and buried beneath dirt.

The rangers shot and killed the bear because it tried to attack them when they went to move the bodies. The contents of the bear's stomach found human remains and clothes, proving the bear had eaten the couple. This had never happened before in the park's 85 years of existence.

In the tent, the rangers discovered a video camera. When they turned it on, they realised the tape had recorded six minutes of audio of the last moments of both Treadwell and Huguenard's lives. It was this audio that helped them piece together precisely what had happened.

The tape revealed that the attack was in progress when the camera was turned on. Treadwell was being mauled outside the tent, while Huguenard was inside the tent. 

"Get out here! I'm getting killed out here!" Treadwell yelled.

Huguenard rushed outside. "Play dead!" she screamed. "Play dead!"

The bear moved away from Treadwell, and she went to him. They spoke for a short while, trying to determine where the bear was and if it was coming back. After a few moments, it returned, and Huguenard backed off. Treadwell screamed that playing dead was not working and told her to hit the bear.

Huguenard grabbed hold of a frying pan and beat the bear with it. "Fight back!" she told Treadwell. 

At this point, Treadwell likely knew he was going to die. Over her screams, he said, "Amie, get away, get away, go away."

While this is a cautionary tale, Treadwell's family and friends would like him to be remembered as someone who cared deeply for wildlife and the environment.

In his last tape on October 5, 2003, mere hours before his death, Treadwell said, "I bleed for [the bears], I live for them, I die for them, I love them... It's tough work, but it's the only work I know. It's the only work I'll ever want. Take care of these animals. Take care of this land. It's the only thing I know. It's the only thing I wanna know."

As Herzog narrated at the ending of Grizzly Man, "Treadwell is gone. The argument how wrong or how right he was disappears into a distance, into a fog. What remains is his footage. And while we watch the animals in their joys of being, in their grace and ferociousness, a thought becomes more and more clear. That it is not so much as a look at wild nature as it is an insight into ourselves, our nature. And that, for me, beyond his mission, gives meaning to his life. And to his death."

Feature Image: Grizzly Man/Lionsgate Films.