ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Chunk, a towering brown bear with a broken jaw, swept the competition Tuesday in the popular Fat Bear Week contest, claiming his first win after narrowly finishing in second place in each of the previous three years.
The annual online competition allows viewers to follow 12 bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve via live webcams and cast ballots in a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament that lasts a week. Chunk, known officially as Bear 32, beat out Bear 856, who does not have a nickname, in the final round, according to totals posted on the organizers’ website.
Chunk’s weight was estimated at 1,200 pounds by contest organizers, who do not weigh individual bears during the contest due to safety concerns. The bears can gain up to four pounds (1.8 kilograms) per day during summer feeding. Despite his broken jaw, Chunk remains one of the biggest, baddest bears at Brooks River, said Mike Fitz, a naturalist for Explore.org. Fitz noted that Chunk likely injured his jaw in a fight with another bear.
The contest is wildly popular. This year, Fat Bear Week attracted over 1.5 million votes from fans who watched the ursines gorge on a record run of fall salmon as they fished in the Brooks River, about 300 miles (483 kilometers) from Anchorage.
It is the largest glut of salmon in the living memories of both the bears and the humans who have been running the Fat Bear Week contest since 2014, according to Katmai Conservancy spokesperson Naomi Boak. That abundance also decreased conflict in the river, as salmon were readily available, Boak said in an email.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Katmai National Park ranger Sarah Bruce estimated that around 200,000 salmon made their way up Brooks River. In leaner years, the toughest bears jockey for the best fishing spots at Brooks Falls, where salmon converge in a bottleneck and leap from the water as they fight their way upstream to spawn.
This year, however, Brooks Falls fishing spots were often empty as bears hunted up and down the river. There was even room for humans to fish. At one point Monday, one of the Explore.org live cameras showed two people calmly casting fishing rods along the river, even as brown bears plodded upstream and downstream from them.
Voters in the online contest could review before and after photos of the bears—lean at the start of summer and fattened at the end. The bears are not actually weighed, as that would be too dangerous and difficult. Some fans choose their favorite based on looks or backstory.
The live cameras at Brooks Falls also captured a dramatic moment in 2024 when mother bear 128, known as Grazer, had her cub slip over the waterfall and float into the fishing spot occupied by Chunk. Chunk attacked and injured the cub. Grazer fought Chunk, but the cub ultimately died. After the dramatic fight, voting fans handed Grazer a victory over Chunk in the contest.
Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies. These bears spend summers catching and eating as many salmon as possible to fatten up for hibernation during Alaska’s cold, lean winters.
https://ktar.com/national-news/chunk-a-1200-pound-bear-with-a-broken-jaw-wins-alaskas-popular-fat-bear-week-contest/5756549/
