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At 2:00 p.m. on October 6, 2003, floatplane pilot Willy Fulton landed on Upper Kaflia Lake on the Katmai Coast of the Alaska Peninsula. It was a typical stormy October day, and Fulton had to fight the weather to reach the arranged pickup spot, where he would meet campers and bear enthusiasts Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard. Willy had been flying Treadwell back and forth from Kodiak to this area for several years, and he considered him a friend. When he taxied to the shore, he was surprised not to see Timothy, Amie, or their pile of gear waiting to be loaded onto the plane. It was unlike Treadwell to be late for a pickup. Treadwell had also, uncharacteristically, failed to call Willy on the VHF radio when the plane approached the lake.

Willy immediately felt something was wrong. When he pulled into the shore, he was directly below Timothy’s campsite, and as he stepped onto the plane’s float, he saw movement up on the knoll. The thick brush blocked his vision, but he thought it was a person shaking out a tent. He called out Timothy’s and Amie’s names, but was met with silence, so he decided to hike up to their camp to see what was taking them so long to get their gear together. The weather was deteriorating, and he wanted to begin the flight back to Kodiak Island.

Willly later said, “About halfway up, I got kind of an odd feeling and decided to go back to the plane.” When he reached the bank and bent down to untie the plane from an alder thicket, his unease grew even more intense. He looked over his shoulder and saw a bear coming up behind him fast, low, and eerily silent. He leaped to his pontoon and pushed the plane away from the bank. He jumped into the cockpit and slammed the door shut. The large bear stopped at the water’s edge, but his eyes never left Fulton. Willy said he felt as if the bear had been stalking him, “like he was out to kill me and eat me.”

Willy knew something bad had happened to either Timothy or Amie, or both. He took off and circled over the camp. The tents were still staked out, but they’d been mashed flat. In front of one of the tents, he saw a large bear and believed it was the same bear that had just chased him. The bear was clearly feeding on human remains. Willy saw a rib cage, but he only saw one body. Perhaps either Timothy or Amie was still alive and desperately needed help.

Soon, everyone would learn neither Timothy nor Amie had survived the brutal bear attack. Not only were these the first, and as of 2026, the only fatal bear attacks in the 108-year history of the Katmai National Park and Preserve, but the bear had turned predatory and had eaten the humans. This type of bear behavior was unheard of in Katmai National Park, and it is very rare in Alaska for a coastal brown bear to kill and eat a human. Bear maulings and deaths have occurred, but the bear attacks because it is defending itself, its food, or its cubs, not because it wants to eat the human. Why did a bear kill and eat Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard?

Sources:

Herzog, Werner. Grizzly Man. 2005. Lions Gate.

Jans, Nick. The Grizzly Maze. 2006.  New York, NY. Penguin Group.

Medred, Crais. “Biologist believes errors led to attack – Bears: Californians’ choices may have contributed to fatal encounter.”  October 10, 2003. Anchorage Daily News.

—–. “Man, Martyr, Myth:” October 14, 2003. Los Angeles Times.

—–. “Woman who died with ‘bear guru’ was duped.” February 18, 2005. Anchorage Daily News.

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Robin Barefield lives in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, where she and her husband own a remote lodge. She has a master’s degree in fish and wildlife biology and is a wildlife-viewing and fishing guide. Robin has published six novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, Karluk Bones, Massacre at Bear Creek Lodge, and The Ultimate Hunt. She has also published two non-fiction books: Kodiak Island Wildlife and Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. She draws on her love and appreciation of the Alaska wilderness as well as her scientific background when writing.

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