Katmai expands Fat Bear Week bracket to 16 bears

Katmai National Park and Preserve has unveiled its largest Fat Bear Week bracket yet, with 16 brown bears competing for public votes after a season marked by an unusually large number of cubs along Alaska’s Brooks River.

The annual single-elimination contest celebrates the park’s bears as they gorge on salmon and build the fat reserves they need for winter hibernation. Voting runs from Sept. 22 to Sept. 29, with a pause over the weekend before a new champion is crowned.

“There are more cubs at Brooks Camp this year than have been seen in a long time,” Park Superintendent Mark Sturm said in a statement. “A new generation of fat bears is taking shape, and they’re off to a strong start.”

Fat Bear Week began in 2014 and has grown into an international online event. Last year, more than 1.7 million votes were cast from more than 100 countries before voters chose Bear 32, nicknamed “Chunk,” as the winner. Chunk, who weighs more than 1,200 pounds, drew support after continuing to feed despite a broken jaw and playing with younger bears. A year earlier, some viewers criticized him after he killed a cub belonging to Bear 128, known as Grazer, the 2024 champion.

This year’s bracket includes new contenders and familiar dominant bears. Bear 89, a male nicknamed “Backpack,” earned his name after an injury as a cub forced him to ride on his mother’s back, according to the park’s website. Another male competitor, 151 Walker, is described as one of the most dominant bears on the river. The Guardian reported that Bear 164, nicknamed Bucky, has shown increasing dominance at Brooks River and is “not even 10 years old,” according to Mike Fitz, a former Katmai ranger and resident naturalist at Explore.org.

Fitz said 37 cubs were counted at Brooks River this year, a record-setting figure cited by NPR. Several cubs are included in the bracket with their mothers, including Bear 806, which adopted an older cub while also raising her own spring cub. Park ranger Sarah Bruce also pointed to Bear 909, which prepared for hibernation after losing both of her cubs this year.

“When you’re voting, consider the challenges of a bear’s life,” Bruce said during an online bracket unveiling. “Trust your gut and go with whatever you think the fattest bear is.”

The contest is built around the bears’ dramatic seasonal transformation. Adult males can emerge from spring gaunt and weigh as little as 600 pounds in summer, then exceed 1,000 pounds by fall. During a period called hyperphagia, they feed relentlessly to store the fat that will sustain them through hibernation.

The bears’ main fuel is salmon. Katmai, located 260 miles southwest of Anchorage, is home to about 2,200 brown bears across 4.2 million acres. The Guardian reported that Fitz described the region as home to “the world’s last great salmon run,” with tens of millions of salmon returning each year and hundreds of thousands moving along Brooks River.

“Without salmon, there would be no Fat Bear Week,” Fitz said. “They’re amazing creatures in their own right, and they are the keystone of the ecosystem.”

Fans can watch the bears through Explore.org webcams installed at Brooks River. Fitz said the cameras help viewers follow individual bears over seasons and years.

“One of the things that makes the webcam experience really special is that we get to follow the stories of individual bears,” he said. “Each bear tells us stories about survival in the wild.”