There aren’t many celebrations of fatness in our thin-obsessed culture, where a perfectly chiseled face is just an Instagram filter away. Add in the influences of Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs, and it seems as if our society will never escape the endless race to the bony bottom.
Behold, the antidote: Fat Bear Week. The annual March Madness-style showdown pits the brown bears of Alaska’s Katmai Preserve against one another. To win requires one simple thing: become the roundest, fuzziest four-legged fatty on Brooks River.
“Fat bears are successful bears,” reads the official Fat Bear Week website. “They exemplify the richness of Katmai National Park and Bristol Bay, Alaska, a wild region that is home to more brown bears than people and the largest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet.
It’s these salmon that help the massive mammals achieve peak plumpness. During hibernation, bears can lose up to one-third of their body weight. From June to October, they gain it all back — and then some. The more they eat, the better they can withstand the long, dark Alaskan winters.
Katmai’s bruins can weigh more than 1,200 lbs., but Fat Bear Week isn’t strictly about the numbers. Competitors aren’t weighed, but instead judged on two pictures: one taken early in the season, post-hibernation, and one taken shortly before they head back into their dens.
Otis won fattest bear for the fourth time in 2021.
Credit: L. Law, NPS
Otis before bulking up for the 2021 season.
Credit: N. Boak, NPS
Dozens of corpulent ursines waddled their way into our hearts with the first-ever Fat Bear Tuesday, a single day in October 2014. By the next year, much like the competitors’ waistlines, the festivities expanded. And they kept on growing.
FatBearWeek.org debuted in 2020. Fat Bear Junior started in 2021, giving younger competitors a chance at the crown.
This year, Fat Bear Junior runs Sept. 26-29, while the main event starts Oct. 2. Competitors will be unveiled during a Sept. 30 livestream/bracket release.
Participants get one vote per day, submitted online. Votes are tied to and tracked by email accounts: One email address equals one vote.
The competition was marred by election tampering in 2022, when an apparent bot stuffed the ballot box for Holly, a repeat champion. Those votes were tossed, and the aptly named 747 flew in for the win.
Certain names and numbers will be familiar to fans of Fat Bear Week. Bear No. 408, Otis, has won four times. A fund has been set up in his name, with donations supporting the 4 million-acre Katmai National Park and Preserve, the fourth-largest national park in the U.S.
Watch a live stream of the bears of Brooks River and learn more about Fat Bear Week competitors at explore.org/meet-the-bears.
Credit: L.Law, NPS
Tubby tots
Feenin’ for fatties? Fat Bear Week Jr. starts this week
Why let the adults have all the fun? This mini-competition features just four yearlings (1-2 year-old bears) going head-to-head.
Despite their comparatively small stature, they still pack on the pounds. Brown bears weigh 1.5-2 lbs. at birth. A couple of years later, they are 10 times as big: 150-200 lbs., on average.
Visit explore.org/fat-bear-week to pick your favorite chonker-in-training.
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