Fat Bear Week Crowns Champion in Annual Contest

Fat Bear Week, an annual online contest celebrating the heftiest brown bears in Katmai National Park and Preserve, has begun its competition. The event showcases the animals' success in accumulating fat reserves through a summer of feasting on sockeye salmon.

Last year's champion, Chunk (Bear 32), estimated at 1,200 pounds in 2025, is participating again this year. He faces strong competition, including Gully (Bear 903), the offspring of a previous two-time winner. The contest features 16 bears in a single-elimination bracket.

This year marks the 12th iteration of the competition, which highlights the resilience of the approximately 2,200 brown bears inhabiting the Alaska Peninsula. These bears rely on the abundant salmon runs in the Brooks River, often catching fish in mid-air as they migrate upstream to spawn.

Voting is conducted online at www.fatbearweek.org, with the winner to be announced on September 29. The public can also view the bears on livestream cameras provided by explore.org before casting their votes.

The nonprofit organization behind the event states, "Fat bears are successful bears." The bears' extensive gorging on salmon, which begins in late June, allows them to build fat reserves crucial for surviving winter hibernation, during which they do not eat or drink and can lose up to a third of their body weight.

Brown bears in Katmai typically weigh between 600 to 900 pounds in midsummer. After consuming up to 30 salmon per day during the migration and spawning season, large males can exceed 1,000 pounds before hibernation. Females are generally about one-third smaller.

Voters can review before-and-after photos of the bears, illustrating their transformation from lean to robust. Some participants select their favorites based on appearance or personal narratives, as the bears are not officially weighed.

To be eligible for the contest, bears must regularly frequent the area around the Brooks River. The live cameras at Brooks Falls have previously captured dramatic moments, including a 2024 incident where a cub of the bear Grazer fell into the water and was attacked by Chunk. Grazer subsequently fought Chunk, but the cub did not survive. In the wake of that event, fans voted Grazer the winner over Chunk, who later reclaimed the title in 2025.

Fat Bear Week was initiated in 2014 as an interactive educational tool to inform the public about brown bears, which are the coastal relatives of grizzly bears.