Fat Bear Week was postponed due to bear murder

We are big fans of Fat bear weekthe light-hearted annual event where fans of fat bears can vote for the fattest of them all The AV Club. With this in mind, we are not at all pleased to announce that this year's competition has been postponed due to one of the bears murdered another in cold blood. Nature is a cruel, cruel place.

The chubby participants were scheduled to be unveiled Monday, but the National Park Service decided to postpone the announcement out of respect to mourn the slain bear 402 Live in front of the webcam while I was enjoying a casual salmon hunt yesterday. Both 402 – an older female grizzly who competed last year – and her younger male attacker, 469, lived in Katmai National Park in Alaska, a key feeding destination for bears looking to fortify themselves before hibernation.

“Today a bear killed another bear on the river. “It was captured live on the webcams and we thought we couldn't move forward with the unveiling of our Fat Bear Week series without addressing this situation first,” says Mike Fritz, the Webcam Host's resident naturalist Explore.orgsaid in a conversation that took place in lieu of the unveiling, above CBS News. However, the minute's silence for the “beloved” bear 402 will only last one day; The bracket will now be announced tonight at 7pm ET.

Fritz and Sarah Bruce, a park ranger in Katmai, told both of them CBS that the grizzly murder was (sorry!) “hard to watch.” Cover your eyes, children, because 469's possible motive is deeply disturbing. It's, uh… well, it might have been bear cannibalism. “We know at this time of year that bears are in this state of hyperphagia and will eat whatever they can [to prep for hibernation]said Bruce. “I don’t know why a bear would want to expend so much energy killing another bear for food. It’s unusual for a bear to chase another bear, but it’s not completely out of the question.”

It's a sobering reminder that while we have a lot of fun voting about bears and their blubber from the safety of our homes, they're much closer to the beast on the other side of the webcam The revenant than Paddington or the one in the honey bottles. “National parks like Katmai protect not only the wonders of nature, but also harsh realities,” added Matt Johnson, a representative of the National Park Service. “Every bear seen on the webcams is competing with others for survival.”

RIP Bear 402; hopefully you will be even fatter in your next life.