It's time to choose 2019's fat bear champion
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 2019! Katmai National Park's bears spent the summer gorging on 4,500-calorie salmon, and they've transformed into rotund giants, some over 1,000 pounds. The park is holding its annual playoff-like competition for the fattest of the fat bears (you can vote online between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8), and Mashable will be following the ursine activity.
The final fat bear showdown has arrived.
The decisive match features two hefty omnivores, veteran mom Bear 435 "Holly" versus male Bear 775 "Lefty," named for his shorter, lopped over left ear. As you can see in their photo comparisons, both bears put on hundreds of pounds this summer as they gobbled the brains, skin, and vivid red flesh of migrating sockeye salmon.
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They are unequivocally champions of their harsh, wild Alaskan realm. But only one can be Katmai National Park and Preserve's 2019 fat bear victor.
Voting is simple. You "like" the photo of the bear you think is the fattest on the park's website. Voting opens at 10 a.m. E.T. on Oct. 8.
Bear 775 "Lefty"
Bear 435 "Holly"
It can be challenging to deduce fatness from pictures alone. Last week, however, Alaskan bear-viewing guide Drew Hamilton visited the short 1.5-mile river where these fat bears dwell (and during the summer, where their activity is captured live on the explore.org webcams).
"It's almost like the river got higher when Holly went in the water to catch a fish."
One bear, in particular, exuded profound fatness.
"You almost get the sense watching her that she’s getting fatter before your eyes," Hamilton said last week of Bear 435 "Holly," noting that even as a professional bear-watcher he may not have ever laid on eyes on such a fat bear.
"This is next level," Hamilton noted.
"It's almost like the river got higher when Holly went in the water to catch a fish," he added.
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Meanwhile, Bear 775 "Lefty" proved formidable enough to knock off the aptly-named Bear 747 in the Fat Bear Week semifinals. That's no easy feat.
Bear 747 is the largest and fattest bear that Mike Fitz, a former park ranger at bear-filled Katmai National Park and currently a resident naturalist for explore.org, has ever seen.
With his great size, 747 is one of the most dominant bears of the Brooks River, where the explore.org webcams are situated in Katmai. Though, Fitz admitted, Holly "may be even proportionally fatter" than 747 and other big males.
Exercise the power of democracy this fat bear season, and vote.
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.
