Voting opened Wednesday for the super-sized grizzlies in the running to win the 2024 Fat Bear Week contest, after one animal's graphic on-camera death delayed the event.
Now in its 10th year, Fat Bear Week is an annual competition of sorts that allows viewers around the world to tune into a series of livestreams starring several brown bears that roam Katmai National Park and Preserve in southern Alaska. Stretched across the wilderness on the Alaskan peninsula, Katmai is home to some of the region's largest grizzly bears, which come each year to the Brooks River for its seasonal salmon run.
With the feeding season nearing its end, and months of hibernation on the horizon, the bulkiest creatures in the national park are celebrated during Fat Bear Week for their hunting successes. Fans can cast votes online for the grizzlies in contention to join the competition's Hall of Champions this year, with the most favored bears progressing through multiple rounds until just one is crowned the victor.
Fat Bear Week kicked off Wednesday and will continue through Oct. 8, known as Fat Bear Tuesday, as organizers of the contest host digital chats about Katmai and the bears themselves. The National Park Service partners with the nonprofit Explore.org to put on the weeklong event, as the organization streams intimate footage of the contenders on its website.
Bears are technically "pitted against each other" as Katmai park rangers place them in brackets typical of traditional sports tournaments, the park service writes in a description of Fat Bear Week on its site.
"People may vote using any criteria they see fit," the description reads. "In the end, one bear with reign supreme."
Organizers of the 2024 Fat Bear Week contest postponed their bracket reveal earlier this week after an on-camera fight between two bears at the mouth of the Brooks River led to the death of one of the animals. Known as Bear 402, a former Fat Bear Week contestant, the older female grizzly was killed by a male, known as Bear 469, Monday morning. Mike Fritz, the resident naturalist at Explore.org, and Sarah Bruce, a Katmai park ranger, suggested in an online discussion held instead of the reveal that the male appeared to drown the "beloved" female, although they were not sure why the brawl began.
"National parks like Katmai protect not only the wonders of nature, but also the harsh realities," the National Park Service's Matt Johnson said in a statement to CBS News after Bear 402 was killed. "Each bear seen on the webcams is competing with others to survive."
This year's bracket consists of 11 massive grizzly bears. The lineup was eventually unveiled Tuesday evening.
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