The start of Fat Bear Week 2024, which was supposed to begin on Monday, did not go as planned after two Alaskan grizzly bears engaged in a brutal live-streamed fight in Katmai National Park, resulting in one bear dying. As a result, the announcement of this year's March Madness-style contestants has been postponed until Tuesday evening.
The tournament has been held annually by Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve since 2014 and gives bear fans the opportunity to vote for which of the park's grizzly bears has had the greatest success in preparing for hibernation. However, this was the first year that the rivalry was affected by bear-bear violence.
Accordingly CBS NewsA fight broke out between one of the previous contestants, an older female bear known as Bear 402, and a male grizzly bear identified as Bear 469 at the mouth of the Brooks River in Katmai, where the bears feed on sockeye salmon to fatten up. winter months. It's unclear what triggered the encounter, but National Park officials said it did not appear to be a typical conflict over food.
Mike Fritz, resident naturalist for Explore.org, the multimedia organization that hosted the livestream, explained why the contest was postponed during the annual kickoff on Monday.
“Earlier today, a bear killed another bear in the river. This was captured live on webcams, and we felt we could not continue our Fat Bear Week group statement without addressing this situation first,” Fritz said. “We like to celebrate the success of bears, with their full stomachs and plenty of body fat. But the ferocity of bears is real, the risks they face are real, their lives can be difficult and their deaths painful.”
Fritz added that Bear 402 was “beloved” and sadly most likely drowned.
Katmai park ranger Sarah Bruce noted that when bears are in a state of hyperphagia (a period of overeating in late summer and fall), they will eat anything they can. But that still doesn't explain the confrontation between two apex predators.
“I don't know why a bear would want to expend that much energy killing another bear as a food source,” Bruce said. “It's rare to see a bear attack another bear, but it's not completely out of the question. So it's hard to say how this started.”
“National parks like Katmai preserve not only natural wonders but also harsh realities,” National Park Service spokesman Matt Johnson said in a statement. “Each bear seen on webcams is competing with other bears to survive.”