![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/chungus.jpg\")
Squirrelly Temple <\/p>\nAUSTIN, Texas – If you want to weigh in and crown the winner of this year’s Fat Squirrel Week, you don’t have long to vote!<\/p>\n
Voting closes at 6 p.m. CT tonight (Oct. 23).<\/p>\n
Meet the finalists <\/p>\n
Big picture view:<\/p>\n
It’s down to two finalists: Chungus and Squirrelly Temple.<\/p>\n
Chungus <\/p>\n
Chungus is from Cooper State Park Doctors Creek, located in Delta County, northeast of Dallas.<\/p>\n
Texas Parks and Wildlife says that Chungus has faced “a hard life since the age of 2 when his Momma mysteriously disappeared during a seemingly harmless road crossing in the big city”.<\/p>\n
Squirrelly Temple <\/p>\n
Squirrelly Temple hails from Fort Parker State Park, south of Mexia and east of Waco.<\/p>\n
TPWD says she is “famous for her rounded cheeks and a cheerful spirit you just can\u2019t shake\u2026despite her rather hairy feet, these twinkle toes can tap a mean beat.”<\/p>\n
“Other fat squirrels should give up the fight, cause as Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, \u2018As long as we have Squirrelly Temple, we\u2019ll be alright!\u2019,” TPWD said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which built Fort Parker State Park in the late 1930s to early 1940s.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/squirrelly-temple.jpg\")
How do I vote? <\/p>\n
What you can do:<\/p>\n
To vote, go to Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Facebook page<\/a> and like, comment or tag a friend under the photo of your pick! Each reaction or comment counts as a vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reactions and comments to the main post will not count towards the total.<\/p>\n The winner will be announced later this evening (Oct. 23) after voting closes.<\/p>\n What is Fat Squirrel Week? <\/p>\n Why you should care:<\/p>\n Fat Squirrel Week is an annual social media competition between Texas state parks. Each park picks a squirrel to represent them.<\/p>\n The squirrels in question are snacking and plumping up in order to hibernate through the colder winter months.<\/p>\n The competition began on Sunday, Oct. 18 with 16 squirrels.<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this report comes from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Facebook page. This story is reported from Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n Pets and Animals<\/a>Texas<\/a>Wild Nature<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas – If you want to weigh in and crown the winner of this year’s Fat Squirrel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,223,5163,2220,216,393,2795],"class_list":["post-475092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-news","tag-pets-animals","tag-science","tag-tx","tag-us","tag-wild-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}