The chubbiest bear will win Fat Bear Week

Fat Bear Week, a March Madness-style competition to determine the heaviest bear in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, has returned.

Monday, the park announced through Twitter that Fat Bear Week, a “time where flab is fabulous and fat is fit,” will commence on October 5.

On Monday, the park also announced the official Fat Bear Week bracket, which features 12 bears contending for the top title.

Before you vote for the chubbiest bear in Katmai, check their profile pages, where they are featured with enticing names such as “32 Chunk” and “128 Grazer” to learn more about them. For Fat Bear Week, visitors to the park’s website can vote once every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and skinnier bears will be eliminated from the bracket until the park proclaims its champion.

On this year’s list is “747,” the Fat Bear champion of 2020. According to the park, this bear’s enormous weight is “sufficient to scare most bears into giving up their territory,” providing him “the best access to fishing spots and mating possibilities.”

Voting begins for Fat Bear Week tomorrow, October 5th, at 9:00 AM Pacific. This contest began in 2014 to bring attention to the gorgeous bears of Alaska’s Katmai National Park.

This is my photograph of Bear Force One, commonly known as 747. He was the 2020 winner. https://t.co/1IhDoTIxgN pic.twitter.com/8dJ4GLY6Bg

— BlueJayWay.eth – 1/15 Puffin Editions (4 October 2022) (@BluejaywayEth)

Notable is “480 Otis,” Katmai’s 2021 Champion Fat Bear, who was also the largest bear in 2014, 2016, and 2017.

Applause for all the bears, especially this year’s champion, 480 Otis, the rotund ancestor of girth! Yesterday, 96,064 of you voted to make this conclusion worthy of the joyous spirit of #FatBearWeek. Thank you to everyone that participated and supported the Katmai wonder. pic.twitter.com/nDRk0T63BW

— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 6, 2021

On October 11, the Fat Bear Week bracket will be cut down to two finalists, after which the title will be declared.

Those who simply wish to see the bears in Katmai National Park can do so through the Brooks Falls bear cam, a network of solar-powered cameras that show the bears eating salmon and lounging in the shallows.