Fat Bear Week: Online voting in Alaska’s beloved contest starts after female bear killed in attack [Video]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Let the chunk-off begin.

Voting starts Wednesday in the annual Fat Bear Week contest at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, with viewers picking their favorite among a dozen brown bears fattened up to survive the winter.

The contest, which is in its 10th year, celebrates the resiliency of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state’s southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands. The animals gorge on the abundant sockeye salmon that return to the Brooks River, sometimes chomping the fish in midair as they try to hurdle a small waterfall and make their way upstream to spawn.

A bear’s death delays the contest

Organizers introduced this year’s contestants on Tuesday – a day late – because one anticipated participant, a female known as Bear 402, was killed by a male bear during a fight on Monday. Cameras set up in the park to livestream footage of the bears all …