On the last day of September 2024, the Fat Bear Week contest was set to start. 2 brown bears were captured in a fatal battle that was live streamed throughout the world.
The 2 bruins bobbed up and down on the Brooks River on the Alaskan peninsula, splashing, tussling, and snapping their jaws at one another. The male bear, 469, drowned the female bear, 402, and took bites from her body.
Scientists state that, while eliminating and cannibalism are regular parts of bear habits, it’s difficult to understand why bear 469 assaulted bear 402 when he did. Michael Fitz, biologist and Fat Bear Week creator, states he typically discovers himself wanting he might ask bears why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Cannibalism in the Animal Kingdom
From an evolutionary viewpoint, members of one’s own types– understood to biologists as conspecifics– are a valuable possible food source for animals in their contest to make it through and recreate.
The danger of cannibalizing an infected conspecific appears to offset this advantage. Cannibalism has actually likewise transferred neurodegenerative illness, such as mad cow illness, and, in human beings, an illness called kuru.
Learn more: Why Cannibalism Is A Common Behavior For Some Animals
Bear Behavior and History
In this case, Larry Van Daele, who has actually invested over 4 years dealing with seaside brown bears, keeps in mind that bear 469’s spots of lighter-colored fur, from which he gets his label Patches, might be “old scars from major injuries gotten throughout fights with other bears.” In 2012, bear 469 Patches was discovered protecting the body of another dead bear that rangers referred to as a food cache.
Each bear likewise has an unique character and history, recommending that bear 402 and 469, who were both older bears, might have currently recognized with one another, which this unidentified history might have been a consider 469’s aggressiveness.
After bear 469 dragged the body of 402 to coast, Fat Bear Week’s a lot of dominant Brooks-River bear, 32, took control of the body and continued to eat it.
“When a bear discovers another dead bear, they do not appear to be shy about consuming a dead bear,” Fitz informed me.
Seasonal Hunger for Bears
Bear 469 appeared fat and healthy to bear specialists, the animal’s seasonal hyperphagic cravings– a severe kind of cravings– might still have actually been an element in the killing. Katmai ranger Sarah Bruce explains that the bear lover Timothy Treadwell and his sweetheart Amie Huguenard were likewise eliminated by a bear with hyperphagia in 2003.
The Fat Bear Week organizers discovered bear 402’s death disturbing, despite the fact that they acknowledged the killing as typical wild bear habits. Naomi Boak, Katmai Conservancy interactions and media expert, recommends that it’s helpful for individuals to see brown bears as the wild animals that they are.
“I believe it is recovering to have a deep connection to nature due to the fact that we as people frequently do not deal with the truths of our own lives and death,” Boak states.