This fat bear's before and after photos are stunning
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 2021! Katmai National Park and Preserve’s brown bears spent the summer gorging on 4,500-calorie salmon, and they've transformed into rotund giants, some over 1,000 pounds. The Alaskan park is holding its annual playoff-like competition for the fattest of the fat bears (you can vote online between Sept. 29 through Oct. 5). Mashable will be following all the ursine activity.
Otis is an aging bear, but a profoundly wise one.
The Katmai bear, numbered 480, is around a quarter-century old with missing teeth. He arrived at the salmon-rich Brooks River, home to the livestreamed explore.org webcams, a month or so late this year. He looked gaunt.
But Otis, famously successful at catching fish with a tried-and-true, unflashy fishing strategy, rapidly persevered. Over the course of around seven weeks, he transformed from a bear with a visible ribcage to one of the fattest of the fat bears.
"He's certainly made up for lost time," Mike Fitz, a former Katmai park ranger and currently a resident naturalist for explore.org, told Mashable. "He's gained an incredible amount of body mass in about seven weeks."
All the fat bears have impressive summer transformations. But the images below show his particularly stunning 2021 change.
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Otis clearly knows how to survive the long, harsh Alaskan winter hibernation, where bears subsist off their fat stores. An old brown bear is 20, and Otis has already far eclipsed that. He has a stationary approach to fishing, where he sits for hours in the same spot beneath the waterfall, as opposed to dashing in the water or standing atop the waterfall for leaping salmon like many other bears. Some might interpret this as Otis acting lethargic or disengaged.
But no. It's wise. He wastes little energy while catching bounties of calorie-rich fish over the long run.
"I like to describe Otis as a master of energy economics."
"Otis is extremely patient when fishing," Fitz previously told Mashable in 2019. "I like to describe Otis as a master of energy economics. He uses his patience and experience to make a huge profit in calories while expending little energy."
Otis' profit is often huge. He's a three-time Fat Bear Week champion, though other formidable bears have bested him over the past few years.
Otis' first Fat Bear Week match-up is happening Thursday, Sept. 30. You can vote on fatbearweek.org, or this Woobox link if the primary site — due to voting popularity impacting the page — is down.
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.
