{"id":48226,"date":"2025-09-28T06:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/48226\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T06:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:25:09","slug":"how-to-vote-for-alaska-bear-week-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/48226\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Vote for Alaska Bear Week Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThat breeze in the air doesn\u2019t just mean it\u2019s time to start looking for your coats. The end of September also means the start of one of the internet\u2019s best annual traditions: Fat Bear Week<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDon\u2019t try to complicate things \u2014 the name is exactly what it sounds like. Fat Bear Week is a now-annual tradition run by the Katmai National Park in Alaska<\/a> alongside media organization Explore<\/a>, where people can vote<\/a> on which fat bear should take home the title. Each of the brown bears that make the lands surrounding the Brooks river their home are categorized by numbers and go head to head in March Madness-type brackets<\/a>. The more prepared the bear is for winter, the more votes should come their way. And boy do the votes come in. In the 11 years since Katmai has held its first Fat Bear Week event, the tradition has transformed from a one-off Facebook post into an annual, global celebration of the national park\u2019s fattest bears, raking in a million votes every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cAt Brooks river, we have this really special opportunity to get to know bears as individuals because most of the bears that use the river are the same bears that come back year after year,\u201d Explore\u2019s resident naturalist Mike Fitz tells Rolling Stone. \u201cFat Bear Week allows the public to choose who they think is the fattest and most successful bear of the year, and it also gives us that opportunity to reflect upon the ecosystem that supports them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are over 2,200 brown bears that live in the Katmai National Park<\/a> and each spends the weeks leading up to the winter hibernation season eating more and packing on the pounds to survive a months-long period where they don\u2019t eat, drink, or leave their dens. But the winners of Fat Bear Week aren\u2019t just chosen by how round they\u2019ve gotten. Different bears need different things from their excess reserves. For mother bears, the fat that she gains has to also support a nursing schedule for her cubs, while younger males need the extra strength for mating opportunities, Fitz says. While many rangers feel uncomfortable publicly choosing favorites, Fitz admits he has a soft spot for Bear 32, who is also known as Chunk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cChunk broke his jaw in June, so he\u2019s had to persevere through that pain and suffering,\u201d Fitz says. \u201cChunk has had to deal with that injury all on his own, and he remains one of the largest, most dominant bears at Brooks River. He\u2019s looking really great going into hibernation this year. It remains to be seen whether he\u2019ll win. I\u2019m often wrong in my predictions. But he\u2019s certainly deserving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tVoting for Fat Bear Week continues through Sept. 30, when Explore and Katmai will crown their newest Fattest Bear. But for those who want to get ahead of their bracket planning for next year, the national parks offer live camera feeds<\/a> of several popular bear spots where viewers both in Alaska<\/a> and around the world can watch how brown bears live in the wild.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll admit, honestly, that it is a little strange and goofy,\u201d he says. \u201cBut at the same time, it gives us the chance to think about, \u2018How is that bear surviving\u2019 and what it had to overcome. And maybe that starts the wheels turning.\u00a0 Ultimately, people can fall in love with these individual animals<\/a> in the bear population and then say, \u2018Let\u2019s look at how we can better the ecosystem that supports them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That breeze in the air doesn\u2019t just mean it\u2019s time to start looking for your coats. The end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[33727,264,61,2129,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-48226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-alaska","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-internet-culture","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}