As the weather grows colder, Alaska's heftiest bears are ready to compete to be named Alaska's fattest bear.
As the weather grows colder, Alaska's heftiest bears are ready to compete to be named Alaska's fattest bear. Online voting opened on Tuesday for the annual Fat Bear Week, a contest that centers around the brown bears of Katmai National Park and Preserve competing against each other over their size.
Last year’s winner, Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — is on the ballot to win again; Chunk’s weight in 2025 was estimated at 1,200 pounds. This year he’s back and facing competition like Gully — Bear 903 — the offspring of two-time champion bear Grazer.
The contest, which is in its 12th year, celebrates the resilience of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula. Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears.
This year features 16 bears facing off in a single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. All voting is done online at www.fatbearweek.org, and the winner will be declared on Sept. 29. The public can watch the bears on explore.org’s livestream cameras before deciding on their favorite.
“Fat bears are successful bears,” the nonprofit’s website says. The bears feast on the abundant salmon that return to the Brooks River starting in late June to accumulate fat reserves.
Adult male brown bears typically weigh somewhere between 600 to 900 pounds (about 270 to 410 kilograms) during the midsummer. By the time they are ready to hibernate in the winter, after feasting on migrating and spawning salmon, large males can weigh over 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) and females are about one-third smaller.
During winter hibernation, the bears do not eat or drink and lose one-third of their body weight.
