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Louise Thomas
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Fat Bear Week, a beloved tradition that marks the beginning of the hibernation season, has been delayed after a fatal fight broke out between two bears at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska.
Each year, Katmai National Park in southern Alaska celebrates its brown bears by creating a bracket-style competition, in which fans can vote on their favorite and fattest bear. While this year’s bracket was set to be unveiled on Monday, September 30, a fatal fight between two Alaskan grizzlies has postponed the competition.
The two bears – one male, named both 402 and “Patches,” and one female, named 402 – were captured on the park’s livestream fighting each other by the Brooks River. The attack resulted in the death of 402, who sank into the water.
Mike Fritz – who works for Explore.org, which hosts Fat Bear Week – spoke about the fight during a livestream, as he explained the voting would be delayed.
“Earlier today, a bear killed another bear on the river. It was caught live on the webcams and we thought, well, we can’t go ahead with our Fat Bear Week bracket reveal without addressing this situation first,” he said, revealing the fight was likely started over food.
“We love to celebrate the success of bears with full stomachs and ample body fat,” he added. “But the ferocity of bears is real, the risks that they face are real, their lives can be hard, and their deaths can be painful.”
During the livestream, Katmai Park ranger Sarah Bruce revealed that bears are normally more violent during the lead-up to hibernation, as they are normally trying to eat as much as they can before hiding away for the winter months. “I don’t know why a bear would want to expend so much energy trying to kill another bear as a food source,” she 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.”
Bruce later explained to the Washington Post that when the bears are violent with each other, the brawls are typically short-lived. However, this one lasted 20 minutes.
This year’s Fat Bear Week bracket will now be released on Tuesday, October 1 at 7pm ET, with voting ending one week later on October 8.
Fat Bear Week was launched back in 2014, when it was given the name Fat Bear Tuesday. The event was started by the Katmai National Park with the goal of celebrating the park’s brown bears and the healthy ecosystem of its Brooks River. Fat Bear Tuesday became so successful that it expanded to Fat Bear Week the following year.
Each year, the park rangers create a tournament-style bracket pitting individual brown bears against each other, and the public can vote online to see who will advance each round.
In 2023, 128 Grazer was crowned winner after she ended up in the final two against 32 Chunk. She received 108,321 votes to Chunk’s 23,134, according to Explore.org.
“The gutsy girl grounded the guy with a gut,” Katmai National Park posted on Facebook at the time. “The Mondo mountain of a male, 32 chunk, proved his prominent posterior was worthy of a whopping win (Chin up, Chunk). But in the end, Chunk got Grazered. Long live the Queen!”
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