Key Points
- The seemingly harmless, democratic event has become so popular, it was this year rocked by a cheating scandal.
- Punters are asked to vote on which bear they think is best prepared for the harsh winter ahead of their hibernation.
It's Fat Bear Week.
It sounds niche, but surprisingly it's not. It's the annual competition that pits brown bears against brown bears in Alaska's Brooks River in Katmai National Park.
From 5 October to 11 October, punters are asked to vote on which bear they think is best prepared for the harsh winter ahead of their hibernation.
In other words, who is the "fattest", chunkiest, plumpest brown bear of them all (in southern Alaska).
Voters describe it as a wholesome, innocent tradition that delights the internet for one week of the year, giving people a chance to gawk at the big boys and girls.
It has even inspired fan art, and ahead of the competition, one follower tweeted: "Happy Bear Week for all those who celebrate".
But, the seemingly harmless, democratic event has now become so popular that Fat Bear Week was this year rocked by a cheating scandal.
Organisers shared in a tweet that virtual ballot boxes had been "stuffed".
Bear 435, also known as Holly, had been spammed with 9,000 votes in a short space of time from someone The Feed can only now describe as her biggest fan.
Holly had initially been crowned the winner of the semi-final which saw her up against Bear 747. But an investigation by Katmai National Park, which runs Fat Bear Week, uncovered voter fraud.
It was the first attempt to undermine their process, organisers said on Twitter.
“Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed,” the park tweeted.
“It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent. We have discarded the fake votes, and today’s official totals are: 747: 37,940; 435: 30,430.”
Holly when she won Fat Bear Week in 2019.
"I am genuinely shocked and outraged. ... why would you want to bring this kind of grim, antisocial vibe to a pleasurable thing like FatBearWeek?" one user said on Twitter.
"We can’t even have FatBearWeek safely?!!! We can’t even agree on fat bears?" another said.
Despite the voting scandal, the Fat Bear of the year was crowned after upward of a million votes were cast. Bear 747, nicknamed the 'one-ton veteran', took out his second title. He is one of the largest brown bears on Earth according to Katmai National Park, estimated to weigh around 635 kilos.
How Fat Bear Week works
Each year 12 bears from the region are placed into a knock-out style tournament where voters decide who will advance based on two images showing their transformation. If you're really invested,
The competition was inspired by a viewer in 2014 who posted a "before and after" style collage of Bear Holly at different times of the year.
While each bear comes with a number, real fans are on a first-name basis with "Chunk", "Otis" and others.
The contest highlights the incredible transformation bears make in the lead-up to hibernation, from which they emerge emaciated and hungry.
In the peak of summer, the adult male brown bears weigh between 272 to 408 kilos. In the lead-up to winter, an adult male brown bear can weigh well over 454 kilos. Adult female bears track a third less in weight.
In just a couple of months, bears can increase their body weight by 50 per cent, mostly by eating salmon - about 220kg of it.
As expected, the competition has become a way for the national park to educate the public about all things bears.
