Day 3 of Fat Bear Week features a big showdown between two former champs
It's the happiest time of the year — Fat Bear Week! This year's event takes place from Sept. 23-30, and Mashable will be following all the ursine activity. Katmai National Park and Preserve’s brown bears (also known as grizzly bears) spent the summer gorging on 4,500-calorie salmon, and they've transformed into rotund giants, some weighing more than 1,000 pounds. So, the Alaskan park is once again hosting its beloved annual competition to crown the fattest of the fat bears.
Welcome to Fat Bear Week at Mashable! Each fall, Katmai National Park holds a competition as Alaska’s brown bears finish fattening up for their long winter hibernation. This year, Mashable is getting in on the salmon-munching action. Check back with us all week as we follow the fat bear face-offs each day, and remember to get your votes in for each round. Happy fishing!
UPDATE: Oct. 5, 2018, 10:11 p.m. EDT Do you hear that? It's the sound of fat bear brackets busting all over the place.
Friday was a day of upsets with fan favorite and former champ Otis getting taken down by the impressively large internet celebrity Beadnose.
Holly also fell to Divot, a young female without cubs to raise this season. Quite a day!
Just eight fat bears remain. The Fat Bear Week quarterfinals have arrived.
Thursday's matchups saw the chubby cubbies fall to Bear 719 and Chunk beat out Bear 812, and Friday's heat-to-heads look particularly competitive.
The first features a matchup between last year's champion, Bear 480 "Otis," and the impressively filled-out Bear 409 "Beadnose" -- also a former champion. Voting opened on the Katmai Facebook page at 10 a.m. ET.
Next up is a quarterfinal showdown between two well-known Brooks River momma bears -- each with a dramatic history. Voting opens up at 4 p.m. ET. Voting for both rounds close at 10 p.m. ET.
In order to vote for the bear that you think has fattened up the most over the course of the season, just click into the photo of your fave and hit the "Like" button.
The impressive weight gain of the first contenders, Otis and 409, can be seen below. No matter the ultimate victor, both are exceptionally well-endowed for the long winter famine.
The second match of the day, which starts at 4 p.m. ET, features Bear 435 "Holly," who is known to get quite chubby, with rolls of fat lining her limbs and body. She does, however, have two cubs in tow, meaning she's had to share calorie-rich meals and sacrifice some girth.
Holly is known to be a capable and devoted mother. Four years ago, she adopted an abandoned cub, and treated the little bear -- now known as Bear 503 -- like her biological offspring.
Holly's competitor, Bear 854 "Divot" also has a rich history. In 2015, she arrived at the Brooks River -- home to the explore.org live webcams -- with a cub in tow. But something was amiss.
Upon closer inspection, rangers found she had a wire trap tightly wrapped around her neck.
Katmai rangers initiated an ambitious operation to remove the snare, which required tranquilizing Divot.
After removing the wire, rangers found it had sliced an inch deep into her neck. They lathered the gruesome wound with antibiotic ointment, and Divot survived.
Still today, a telltale ring can be seen around her neck.
Topics Animals
Mark was the science editor at Mashable. After working as a ranger with the National Park Service, he started a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating people about the happenings on Earth, and beyond.
He's descended 2,500 feet into the ocean depths in search of the sixgill shark, ventured into the halls of top R&D laboratories, and interviewed some of the most fascinating scientists in the world.
