Fat Bear Week starts a day late after bear kills rival on live webcam

Bear sneaks up behind boy in Aspen

A boy was sitting near a fire pit eating kettle corn in Aspen, Colorado when an unexpected visitor began lurking dangerously close. Video: KDVR

Fat Bear Week is back for its 10th anniversary, but the annual contest that celebrates brown bears and their healthy appetites was delayed after a bear in Alaska’s Katmai National Park killed another bear on a live webcam.

Around 9:30 a.m. Alaska time Monday, the popular live webcam facing the Brooks River showed two bears fighting in the water. Bear 469, an older adult male, fought with – and eventually killed – Bear 402, an older adult female.

Bear 910 in beach-ready form (NPS image by Cory Cravatta)

"This is a difficult situation to witness," Explore.org’s resident naturalist Mike Fitz said in a YouTube video explaining the incident. "We love to celebrate the success of bears with full stomachs and ample body fat, but the ferocity of bears is real. The risks they face are real. Their lives can be hard and their deaths can be painful."

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Fitz said the camera didn’t show what, if anything, happened to cause the fight. After Bear 469 killed Bear 402, he dragged her body ashore.

What is Fat Bear Week?

Fat Bear Week is a March-madness style bracket competition in which bears compete daily in head-to-head matchups for the title of 2024 Fat Bear Week Champion.

(From left) 910 Jr. and 910 rest on the bank of Brooks Falls in Bristol Bay, AK on Sept. 20, 2023. (Getty Images)

This year is the 10th anniversary of Fat Bear Week, which started in 2014 as a way to celebrate Katmai’s bears and the ecosystem that allows them to thrive.

"Bears feast on a banquet of Alaska wild salmon in one of the greatest salmon runs left on earth, which is made possible by the pristine waters that have their source in Katmai National Park and Preserve," the National Park Service said in a news release.

The bracket was originally supposed to be revealed Monday, Sept. 30, but the fatal bear fight delayed the unveiling to 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Last year, nearly 1.4 million votes were cast for the bears from more than 100 countries.