There can only be one true winner ofFat Bear Week . I ’m proud of to announce 2020 ’s beefiest bear is 747 .
The ably name ursine interlingual rendition of a jumbo fountain won a square bracket competition , pound out other freak bear of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska to claim the form of address . Now , we celebrate his claiming of the pate .
Fat Bear Week comes but once a year , during which time the doomsday provender is momentarily muffled by the gloriously hefty boy ( and girls ! ) of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska . The brown bears of the Brooks River have spent the last couple of calendar month packing on the pounds by stuff themselves on a bounty of sockeye salmon salmon and whatever other rich and scrumptious foods they can scrounge up . With winter hibernation nearing , they ’re at peak plumpness .
That’s a fat bear.Photo: National Park Service/Explore.org
In the spring , these bear emerge from their dens having recede aup to a thirdof their dead body weight unit while they were snoozing through the wintertime . The spring and summertime are a time to pack on the pound , with the bears of Katmai National Park really slant into their annual binge toward the remnant of June . The bears must add enough heft to their stacked figure as possible , a practice that ’s afforded us this profoundly satisfying tradition of Fat Bear Week .
Fat Bear Weekis run by Explore.org and the commons as a mode to lionize the bears ’ accomplishment , typically start around the beginning of October . That ’s when these bears have packed on enough girth for those brazen-faced before and after photos that really impart their progress into sharp-worded focus . Explore.org ’s webcams have also ease up users all summer to watch the bears ’ transformations and trick along the Brooks River . With the pandemic limiting travel to anywhere this twelvemonth , let alone Katmai , the Cam have beenparticularly console stress reliever .
For the last week , ursine aficionado have cast their votes for participate bear in this single - liquidation bracket . present off for the final round were32 ( aka Chunk ) and 747 , two supremely rotund contenders . But only one bear can be crowned winner , and this year , 747 took home the title for most portly , having roll up enough fat to virtually double its lot . I mean , depend at that before photo !
A stunning transformation.Graphic: National Park Service/Explore.org
747 unseatslast year ’s succeeder Holly , a terrifically orotund bear who again competed in this twelvemonth ’s bracket but failed to make it to the final examination . That ’s alright , though . Holly — and all of Katmai ’s fat bears for that affair — is a success in our books .
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