Image credits: Mark Basarab/Unsplash.
People around the world watch these bears through live-streaming cams. Their individual photos are likewise shared on social media and the parks website. Whats more intriguing is that individuals get to cast a choose the bear they believe is the fattest or has made the most significant weight gain.
This year the winner of Fat Bear Week is a strong female bear 128 Grazer. She defeated a big male bear, 32 Chunk, by over 85,000 votes and ended up being an online sensation over night..
Bear lady summertime.
The popularity of Fat Bear Week.
Every year in between September and October, the Katmai National Park and Maintain in Alaska hosts a special event when the brown bears in the park start delighting in salmon from the Brooks River, to get ready for their long winter hibernation..
This special event is called Fat Bear Week. It occurs as a bracket-style tournament with pairs of bears competing against each other in each round. The bear that receives the a lot of votes online in each matchup, advances to the next round till a winner is crowned as the fattest bear of the year.
The very first Fat Bear competitors took place in 2014, and the park group noticed that live-streamed videos of the bears gained the interest of lots of people on Facebook. About 1,700 people voted during this single-day occasion.
128 Grazer in July 2023 (left) and in September 2023 (right). Image credits: Courtesy N. Boak and NPS Photo/F. Jimenez.
Occasions like Fat Bear Week not only draw peoples interest in brown bears and the sensitive environment in which these animals grow but likewise help them recognize the significance of bear conservation efforts..
The next year, Fat Bear Day developed into Fat Bear Week, and the event became so popular that in 2021 the park organizers likewise launched its spin-off competition, Fat Bear Junior in which individuals vote for bear cubs who start getting chubbier as the winter season methods.
Of course, this is simply a whimsical effort centered around a natural procedure.
” I suddenly understood that people are getting in touch with these animals just as strongly as they would in person,” Mike Fitz, a former park ranger who was associated with the launch of the first Fat Bear occasion, said in an interview with the New York Times..
Nevertheless, for the organizers at Katmai National Park, Fat Bear Week has become an effective method to raise awareness about brown bears and their environment..
Brown bears are not a threatened species, human interference in their natural environments adversely impacts them. For example, the regional brown bear population in Southwest Alaska is presently dealing with a looming risk from a proposed open-pit gold and copper mine.
The popularity of these competitors can be envisioned from the reality that in 2023, Fat Bear Week and Fat Bear Junior got over 1.38 million votes.
” People discover more about brown bears and the salmon this way. Some people feel an emotional response when their bear wins or when their bear happens to lose because they care about the bear as a specific,” Fitz stated.
Fat Bear Week links humans with bears.
This special occasion is called Fat Bear Week. The bear that gets the most votes online in each matchup, advances to the next round until a winner is crowned as the fattest bear of the year.
During hibernation, the bears do not consume anything and lose 30 percent of their body weight. The additional fat they collect in September and October by overindulging salmon is important to fulfilling their energy and dietary requirements during this duration.
People across the world watch these bears through live-streaming webcams. Their individual images are also shared on social media and the parks site. Whats more interesting is that individuals get to cast a vote for the bear they believe is the fattest or has made the most substantial weight gain.
Specialists suggest that the mines development will endanger salmon which is the main food source of brown bears and also limit their movement.
According to the Park authorities, Grazer who presently weighs around 315 kg (700 pounds), and other bears are now in best body shape. They will soon enter their dens and spend the next 6 months hibernating.
” My supreme goal is to hope that they can put those feelings into action to further protect Bristol Bay and the brown bears and the salmon who call the area home,” he added.
