Bear 747- 2022 Fat Bear Week Champion Photo courtesy of L. Law
The annual Fat Bear Week contest starts Monday, 4 October, and runs until Tuesday 10 October. This event has been held every autumn since 2014. The brown bears at Katmai national park pack on the pounds every fall in preparation for their winter snooze.
From the NPS Katmai site:
Held over the course of seven days and concluding on the Fat Bear Tuesday, people chose which bear to crown in this tournament style bracket where bears are pitted against each other for your vote. . .
From its humble beginnings as Fat Bear Tuesday in 2014 to over 1 million votes cast last year in 2022, celebrating fat bears and Katmai’s healthy ecosystem has since become a tradition. For bears, fat equals survival. Each winter, bears enter the den where they will not eat or drink until they emerge in spring. During this time, they may lose up to one-third of their body weight as they rely solely on their fat reserves. Survival depends on eating a year’s worth of food in six months.
At Katmai, bears are drawn to the large number of salmon readily available from roughly late June through September. Salmon have long since been the lifeblood of the area, supporting Katmai’s people, bears and other animals. Fat bears exemplify the richness of this area, a wild region that is home to more brown bears than people and the largest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet.
Rangers create a tournament style bracket pitting individual bears against each other. The public then votes to see who will advance each round. Voting takes place over several days on www.fatbearweek.org. People may vote using any criteria they see fit. In the end, one bear will reign supreme.
You can vote on your choice for the fattest bear Here
There are several livestreams available for the Brooks river area so you can watch the bears as they feast on salmon.
Last year’s winner, bear 747, our cover bear, was also the winner of the 2020 Fat Bear Week competition.
