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 Fat Bear Week for Alaska's grizzlies has become a national
internet sensation, pitting individual bears against each other
in an online voting contest.
This year’s champion fat fan favorite is Holly, organizers of
the event said late Tuesday, with the winner selected by popular
vote based on photos displayed on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KatmaiNPP.
“All hail Holly whose healthy heft will help her hibernate until
the spring. Long live the Queen of Corpulence!” Katmai National
Park and Preserve said on its Facebook page, which featured
photographs of salmon-fattened Katmai brown bears.
Katmai, in southwestern Alaska, is known for its brown bears,
which grow to massive sizes by gorging on salmon. Holly, who did
not have cubs this year to distract her, had an especially big
finish to the season.
“She’s just a great bear. When she doesn’t have cubs, she looks
like the Michelin Man,” said Naomi Boak, a Katmai Conservancy
media ranger who has been managing this year’s Fat Bear Week
event.
Holly, who won in a field of 12 contenders, has been
single-minded this year in her pursuit of salmon at Brooks
Falls, the park’s best-known bear-gathering spot.
“She doesn’t stop fishing. It was really hard to get pictures of
her because she just doesn’t get out of the water,” Boak said.
Fat Bear Week, an event that combines tongue-in-cheek
competition with science education, highlights the Katmai bears’
preparation for winter hibernation.
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Bears typically lose a third of their body weight during their
winter sleep, so the body fat they accumulate in summer and fall is
crucial to survival. Thanks to Katmai’s bounty of salmon, along with
its abundant berries, the park’s male bears can eat their way to
more than 1,000 pounds and females to about two-thirds that weight
before they retreat to their hibernation dens in the mountains.
Even before this year’s Fat Bear Week, Holly was well-known to fans
of Alaska wildlife. She has been a regular to millions of viewers
who watch footage from the livestream “bear cam” at Brooks Falls
that was set up and is operated by the site Explore.org.
Holly was already famous for adopting a yearling cub that had been
abandoned by its mother. Adoption is “very, very unusual” among
brown bears, Boak said, prompting Holly's bear-cam followers to dub
her "Supermom."
Although she had no cubs this year, Holly has offspring, including
another adult female with cubs of her own. The three generations
spent much of the summer at Brooks Falls, Boak said.
As well as the bears’ bodies, Fat Bear Week’s following also swelled
this year. There were about 187,500 online votes cast in the 2019
competition, more than three times as many votes tallied in last
year’s Fat Bear Week. The event gained a following in schools across
the United States, after teachers incorporated Katmai’s fat bears
into lesson plans.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Rich McKay and
Susan Fenton)
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