the base of Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska. Photo © Katmai Conservancy/Guy Runco.
The month of September is nearing its end, bringing with it colder temperatures and blankets of birch leaves.
The end of the month also means its time for Fat Bear Week. The social media event, put on by Katmai National Park and Preserve as well as Explore.org, pits the park’s famous grizzly bears against one another in a single-elimination bracket to determine who is best prepared for the long, cold winter.
The winner is not chosen by getting the behemoth bears onto a scale, however. Instead, the public votes to decide who moves on to be crowned the Fat Bear Week champion.
In addition to the actual voting, there are multiple live online events scheduled for Fat Bear Week 2021. The bracket for this year’s tournament will be revealed on Monday, and voting begins Wednesday, but some perennial competitors are likely to make an appearance, including last year’s aptly named champion, 747. By the time he settled down for the winter, 747 weighed an estimated 1,400 pounds, but he could face competition from other massive bears like Chunk, Walker, and Grazer for the 2021 crown.
