Fats Bear Week is, above all, a celebration.
Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve is without doubt one of the wildest, least developed nationwide parks, permitting an untrammeled pure world to flourish. This leads to a lake and river ecosystem teeming with salmon, and consequently, impressively fats bears.
“Fats bears exemplify the richness of Katmai Nationwide Park and Bristol Bay, Alaska, a wild area that’s dwelling to extra brown bears than individuals and the most important, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet,” park rangers at Katmai Nationwide Park and Protect instructed Mashable over e mail.
Fats Bear Week, which happens across the first week of October every year, is a web based occasion organized by the Park Service and wildlife livestreamers explore.org. The occasion reveals how the area’s brown bears have fared after months of devouring 4,500-calorie sockeye salmon. Fats bears are wholesome, profitable bears, endowed with ample fats shops to survive the long, harsh Alaskan hibernation.
“Every winter, curled cosy of their dens, brown bears endure a months-long famine,” Katmai’s rangers defined. “Throughout hibernation, bears won’t eat or drink and they’ll lose one-third of their physique weight. Their winter survival will depend on accumulating ample fats reserves earlier than coming into the den. Katmai’s brown bears are at their fattest in late summer time and early fall after a summer time spent attempting to fulfill their profound starvation.”
Fats Bear Week permits the general public (you) to vote on-line for the fattest bear (voting is done on the explore.org website and begins on Oct. 5, 2022 at 12 p.m. ET). It is a playoff-like, single-elimination match that lasts a couple of week. The 2022 bracket is beneath.
The official 2022 Fats Bear Week bracket.
Credit score: discover. org / NPS
Bear 32, aka “Chunk,” in 2020.
Credit score: N. BOAK / NPS
Most of the bears within the match are well-known, which spices up the competition. They have been reside on digital camera alongside Katmai’s 1.5-mile-long Brooks River all summer time, the place they fish in strategic spots (like beneath a waterfall). Many bears return yearly to feast, so biologists and bear cam viewers alike know the animals’ life historical past and temperament.
2019’s champ, bear 435 “Holly,” is acknowledged for being a wonderful mom. In 2014, Holly “adopted” (from the human perspective, anyhow) an deserted cub — a helpless young bear who was sure to die soon. Bear 480 “Otis” is a well-liked bear who, although getting old and lacking enamel, is exceptional at catching fish in his typical spot beneath the Brooks River waterfall, a spot dubbed “Otis’ Workplace.”
Each Holly and Otis are favorites within the 2020 match. They’ve stiff competitors, nevertheless, from enormous bear 747, an animal that yearly grows to properly over 1,000 kilos by summer time’s finish.
Whereas every Fats Bear Week ends with a champion, all of these animals are winners. Katmai may generally appear to be utopia for the animals — a protected land teeming in fish — but the bear world is undoubtedly harsh. Risks from different bears loom giant, and bears should try to placed on tons of of kilos over the summer time months to make sure they survive the lengthy winter famine.
For male bears, bigger means more dominant and entry to the very best fishing spots. A feminine should catch sufficient fish to help each herself and her cubs. Youthful “teenage” bears, in the meantime, should fend for themselves in a realm dominated by older, bigger, and vastly extra skilled bears.
“Every bear faces its personal challenges so as to achieve the physique mass essential to survive,” Katmai’s rangers mentioned.
