Bear Mauling Kills Grizzly Advocate, Friend

An advocate of grizzly bear protection and his camping companion were mauled to death by one or more bears in a remote part of Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve, officials said Tuesday.

Treadwell was the founder of Grizzly People, an organization devoted to the protection of grizzly bears and their habitat. According to the group's Web site, Treadwell's practice was to travel to bear country without weapons.

It was the first fatal bear attack in Katmai for at least 15 years, the Park Service said. The park is known as one of the world's premier sites for viewing huge brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies, as they feast on salmon.

When park rangers and state troopers flew to the remote site to recover the bodies, they had to kill two aggressive bears that were threatening them, officials said.

Treadwell made a practice of getting within inches of the animals, but the Park Service recommends a 50-yard distance, he said.

Irony? As H would say, "buckets and buckets of it". There's the obvious one - protector of the bears is eaten by one. There's another good one in there though - two of the bears he dedicated himself to protecting were killed in order to collect his leftover bits. The critical portion is the last line, of course. He might have loved bears but he was an idiot, approaching to within inches of wild bears. That qualifies him for the Darwin Awards.