The winner of this year’s Fat Bear Week has been crowned and, holy moly, she’s a hefty girl!
128 Grazer, a massive mama who isn’t afraid to stand up to the biggest and baddest of bears, has secured her first win in Katmai National Park and Preserve’s annual contest, blowing her competition straight of the fish-filled waters they use to fatten up for winter.
Grazer went head-to-head against competitor 32 Chunk in the final round of the bracket-style vote, receiving 108,321 votes to Chunk’s 23,134 votes.
According to the National Park Service, Grazer was first identified on Alaska’s Brooks River in 2005 when she was just a cub.
“Since then, she’s become one of the best anglers at Brooks River. She can fish successfully in many locations,” the park service wrote in Grazer’s bio, adding that she’s not afraid to scavenge dead and dying fish further downstream.
Past chances at the crown have, at times, been slightly hindered by trailing baby bears — Grazer has successfully raised two litters of cubs over the years.
This year, she returned to the Brooks River as a solo diner with no cubs to take care of.
Grazer is so fierce and protective, the park service writes, that this year’s other bears “remembered her reputation and Grazer maintained a high level of dominance even though she was single.”
“For example, a large adult male, 151 Walker, regularly avoided her approach.”
Fat Bear Week marks the ultimate battle of the burly, as brown bears flock to the Brooks River in Katmai to feast on the area’s abundant sockeye salmon run.
The bears’ main goal is to fatten up as much as possible before a long winter hibernation, with the biggest of the bears tossing back a whopping 160,000 calories per day in fresh fish.
In the late weeks of summer and early autumn, the male bears can gain up to 230 kilograms (just over 500 pounds), effectively doubling their size by the time hibernation starts in late October or early November.
This gluttonous feast is celebrated online as people worldwide tune in to live cams positioned around the park and cheer on their favourite bears. Fans were invited to cast their votes, bracket-style, over the course of six days (Oct. 4 to Oct. 10 this year), with the year’s winner on what’s been dubbed Fat Bear Tuesday.