Who’s the beefiest bear cub in Alaska?
As the bears fatten themselves up before their long winter sleep, one Alaska national park is preparing for its annual “Fat Bear Week” contest with a junior league chunk-off.
The Katmai National Park and Preserve’s bear celebration kicks off on Oct. 2 — when fans can begin voting online for their favorite plumpers in a tournament-style bracket.
Grazer, the winner of the 2023 Fat Bear Contest, at Katmai National Park, Alaska on Sept. 14, 2023. AP
909 Jr. at Katmai National Park in Alaska on Sept. 12, 2024. APOn Tuesday, organizers revealed the four cub contestants in this week’s Fat Bear Jr. Contest — with the “chubby champ charging on to face the corpulent competition” in the adult bracket, announced Naomi Boak of the nonprofit Katmai Conservancy.
More than 1.3 million votes were cast in last year’s contest, which started as a celebration of the some 2,200 brown bears who live on the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which juts out into the Pacific in the southwest corner of the state
The bruins can be viewed filling their stomachs with salmon and returning to the Brooks River on live cameras throughout the summer.
There are returning ursines in this year’s Fat Bear Jr. contest. The 2022 and 2023 junior champs are back in the running, who remain eligible as they still are considered a cub and live with a sow.
Most cubs stay with their mother for about 2 1/2 years — but the 2022 Fat Bear Jr. winner, known as 909 Jr., has been slow to move out and at nearly 4 years old has remained living with an aunt.
There’s also an emotional favorite: a spring cub of Grazer, last year’s Fat Bear champ.
806’s yearling at Katmai National Park in Alaska on Sept. 15, 2024. APGrazer’s sibling died this summer after it slipped over a small waterfall on the Brooks River and was killed in a grisly attack by a dominant adult male known as Chunk — or Bear 32.
Grazer desperately tried to fight off Chunk to save the cub, but it later died. The heartbreaking attack was captured on the bear cameras.
Adult male brown bears typically weigh 600 to 900 pounds in mid-summer.
By the time they are ready to hibernate after feasting on migrating and spawning salmon — slurping down as many as 30 fish per day — large males can weigh well over 1,000 pounds.
Females are about one-third smaller.
The adult contestants for the Fat Bear Week tournament will be announced Sept. 30, with voting taking place Oct. 2-8.
With Post wires
