Fat Bear Week is back, and a 1,200-pound champion is already in the spotlight
Online voting has opened for Fat Bear Week, with last year's 1,200-pound winner Chunk chasing another Katmai title before Sept. 29.
One of the internet’s strangest annual traditions is officially underway again, and this year’s headline name is a very large defending champion. Fat Bear Week has opened for online voting, with Alaska’s best-fed brown bears competing for the title in Katmai National Park and Preserve.
Chunk is back in the bracket
The returning bear to watch is Chunk, also known as Bear 32, who won last year after his weight was estimated at 1,200 pounds. He is trying to repeat in this year’s contest and is up against other heavy hitters, including Gully, or Bear 903, the offspring of two-time champion Grazer.
Fat Bear Week is now in its 12th year and features 16 bears in a single-elimination bracket. The public votes online at fatbearweek.org, and this year’s winner is set to be announced Sept. 29. Before choosing, viewers can also check in on the bears through explore.org’s livestream cameras.
Why getting huge is the whole point
The competition celebrates the success and resilience of the roughly 2,200 brown bears that live in Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula. It began in 2014 as an interactive way to teach people about brown bears, described here as the coastal cousins of grizzlies.
The idea behind the contest is simple: fat bears are thriving bears. Salmon begin returning to the Brooks River in late June, and the animals spend the season building the reserves they need for hibernation. Some even catch fish in midair as salmon move upstream to spawn.
Adult male brown bears usually weigh about 600 to 900 pounds in midsummer. By the time they are ready to den up, large males can top 1,000 pounds. Each bear can eat as many as 30 fish in a day. Females are about one-third smaller, and during winter hibernation the bears do not eat or drink and can lose one-third of their body weight.
Fans are judging more than size
The bears are not actually placed on a scale. Instead, voters compare before-and-after images showing the animals at the start of summer and again after months of feeding. Some fans also make their picks based on appearance or the bears’ backstories.
That history has helped shape this year’s field. Cameras at Brooks Falls captured a 2024 encounter involving Grazer and Chunk after one of Grazer’s cubs slipped over the waterfall into Chunk’s fishing area. Chunk attacked and injured the cub, which later died. Fans then voted Grazer past Chunk in that matchup. Chunk returned the following year and took the crown.
To make the tournament, the bears must be regulars around the river. The result is a bracket built around familiar faces, big appetites and a surprisingly competitive online vote.
