The annual ranking of “fat bears” at Katmai National Park has become a popular pastime among animal lovers. Fat Bear Week, as it’s known, allows viewers around the world to vote for their favorite grizzlies as they stuff themselves with salmon on the Brooks River.
But this perennial celebration took an unexpected turn Monday when two grizzlies ended up in a fatal encounter — on live television. Explore.org partners with the National Park Service to host the annual competition, and had planned to reveal this year’s “bear bracket” during a Monday livestream.
That’s when a fight between two Alaskan grizzly bears resulted in one killing the other. In the below video, the bears can be seen swatting each other with their massive paws.
“The situation that we dealt with today was difficult to witness,” Mike Fitz, a resident naturalist with Explore.org, said in the live broadcast. “This was supposed to be our Fat Bear Week bracket reveal. But earlier today, one bear killed another bear. We thought, ‘Okay, we can’t go ahead with our bracket reveal without addressing this situation.'”
The 2024 Fat Bear Week bracket reveal has now been postponed until 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday. But wildlife officials and national park lovers still have plenty to say about what happened — and how to understand it.
Bears 402 and 469
The grizzly bear fight occurred near the mouth of Katmai Park’s Brooks River, a protected area in Alaska that attracts some of the state’s biggest bears. They come to feast on the abundant salmon and add plenty of fat for a long winter hibernation.
That’s where an adult male known as 469 fought with an older female — a previous Fat Bear Week contestant known as Bear 402. Although the bears were about the same size, they are very different in other ways, explained Sarah Bruce, a Katmai park ranger. The mama bear killed Monday had raised eight litters and was “beloved,” according to Bruce and Fitz.
As the bears clashed in a fairly deep part of the river, it’s likely that Bear 402 ultimately died by drowning, they said. However, Bear 469 was later seen dragging the dead bear onto the riverbank to store the carcass as a “food source,” Bruce told GearJunkie on Tuesday.
“So we have seen bears predate on other bears along the Brooks River before, but we don’t see it every year,” Bruce said. “The most unique thing about it is that it was caught on camera for the world to see.”
Bruce and Fitz discussed the possible reasons for the confrontation, which they said seemed too drawn out for a simple fight over food. All the grizzly bears in Katmai are currently in a state of hyperphagia, Fitz said, when they try to eat everything they can. Still, picking a fight with another adult bear isn’t common, he added.
“I don’t know why a bear would want to expend so much energy trying to kill another bear as a food source,” Fitz said. “It’s an uncommon thing to see a bear predating on another bear, but it’s not completely out of the question. So it’s hard to say how this started.”
‘Harsh Realities’ of Bear Life
In a press release, park officials said that “national parks like Katmai protect not only the wonders of nature, but also the harsh realities. Each bear seen on the webcams is competing with others to survive.”
All votes for Fat Bear Week are cast at fatbearweek.org in a March Madness-style bracket competition. The bears “compete” daily in head-to-head matchups for the title of 2024 Fat Bear Week Champion. Voting takes place October 2-8, with the champion fat bear crowned on October 8.
This is the 10th anniversary of the event, which started in 2014 as a way to celebrate Katmai’s bears and the ecosystem where they thrive. Nearly 1.4 million votes were cast for the bears last year from over 100 countries, according to the National Park Service.
Though it’s important to discuss the bear fight, Bruce said she’s looking forward to “getting some more positive things out of Fat Bear Week.”
“Having to watch a bear die on camera is really hard … But Fat Bear Week is about survival, and it’s a unique thing for people to experience the park from their living room,” Bruce said. “It’s something that we will talk about for a long time.”
