PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — It’s time for the annual celebration of the huskiest chunksters at Katmai National Park in Alaska.
Each year, the park hosts Fat Bear Week, a March-Madness style bracket to crown the park’s fattest overall. In theory, the criteria for picking the bears is based on how much size they gained to prepare for hibernation, but people can really just vote for whatever bear they like the most.
There are before and after photos of each bear, with a little slider to see their transformation. You pick one bear in head-to-head matchups, with one eventually being declared the overall champion.
“One bear will reign supreme,” the National Park Service says.
Voting happens daily at noon Eastern time (until 9 p.m. each day) starting on Wednesday, October 5 at www.fatbearweek.org. Voting ends on Tuesday, October 11.
The participants include reigning and overall four-time champion 480 Otis, 2020 champion 747 and 2019 champ 435 Holly.
Fat Bear Junior, aka the chubby cubby competition, wrapped up last week with 909’s Yearling named top cub.
You can read about all the bears and learn more about the event here. Katmai also has livestreams of the bears throughout the season here.
