Fat Bear Week is my Super Bowl. It is my Burning Man. It is the thing that I talk too much about, and wait for way too eagerly, each year. But that’s because it is the most wholesome and joyous event. It was started by the naturalists at Katmai National Park in Alaska ten years ago to celebrate the grizzly bears of the park getting fat in time for winter. (In bear terms, fatness equals health, since it helps them survive hibernation.) It has evolved from Fat Bear Tuesday to a week long tournament with a printable bracket and everything. You vote for the bear that you think has achieved the most impressive weight gain.
This year’s competition was full of twists and turns. Many prior heavyweight champions (pardon the pun) did not make it that far, including five-time winner 480 Otis, grizzled veteran 32 Chunk, and the illustrious 747, also known as Colbert. 747 is named after the airplane because of his size, and he was last year’s champion. This year, single mom 128 Grazer won the competition. Her win is definitely an upset, because bear moms have significant energy expenditures from feeding and caring for their young, so they don’t usually gain as much weight as the male bears. Needless to say, I am bursting with pride on Grazer’s behalf. It’s not easy for single moms, and bears are no exception.
The wait is over. After a highly anticipated week of competition, voters have crowned a new winner of Fat Bear Week.
They chose 128 Grazer, a defensive mother bear and first-time winner of the sought-after title.
She beat second placed 32 Chunk, a larger bear, by more than 85,000 votes.
“The gutsy girl grounded the guy with a gut,” the Alaska Katmai National Park & Preserve, which hosts the event, said in a tweet.
“32 Chunk, proved his prominent posterior was worthy of a whopping win. But in the end, Chunk got Grazered,” the park service added.
Fat Bear week, an online event founded in 2014 by former park ranger Mike Fitz, has become an internet sensation, attracting millions of viewers each year.
Each year, fans pick their favourite of 12 plump brown bears from Alaska’s Katmai National Park that have gathered along the Brooks River to chomp on salmon and pack on as many pounds before winter.
This year, Grazer received a whopping total of 108,321 votes, according to Explore.org, which tracks the contest for the park service.
A large mother to two litters of cubs with a long muzzle and “conspicuously blonde ears”, Grazer is one of the fattest bears to hunt for salmon in the Brooks River, the National Park Service said.
She was introduced to the area as a young cub in 2005, and has since become one of the most successful fishers on the waters.
“She can chase down fleeing salmon in many parts of the river or patiently scavenge dead and dying salmon after they spawn,” the National Park Service said.
She has guts, too. The National Park Service said Grazer often preemptively confronts and attacks much larger and more dominant male bears to ensure her cubs’ safety.
I was rooting for another single mom bear, 435 Holly, who also has cute blonde ears. But really, I just love the whole competition. Grazer takes no prisoners and she will stand up to any male bear who messes with her, and some of them have started giving her the best fishing spots out of fear. I aspire to be like her one day. A lot of the bears looked thinner than normal to me this year and I think climate change contributed. My friends who live in Alaska described it as a warmer than average summer (though it rained kind of a lot). So I think the warmer weather may have affected the salmon spawning. I also feel compelled to point out that Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game killed nearly a hundred brown bears this past spring, including twenty cubs, because of a decline in the caribou population. Apex predators like bears and wolves are easy scapegoats for cattle ranchers, hunters, and other special interest groups. Living alongside bears comes with challenges and risks–if you have a jacuzzi, they will probably find it! But they are vital to their ecosystems, and on balance, humans are far more disruptive to their way of life, than they are to our way of life. Hopefully the growing popularity of Fat Bear Week can show the powers that be, that people love bears and want them to be able to thrive. And Long Live Grazer, my Queen. May she continue to terrify the man bears for many years to come.
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