'Backpack' Named Winner of Alaska's Fat Bear Week
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports that "Backpack," a brown bear, has been crowned the winner of Alaska's annual Fat Bear Week competition, held by the Katmai National Park.
Fat Bear Week is a 13-year-old competition that celebrates the impressive weight gain of bears leading up to hibernation. This year, "Backpack" emerged victorious, narrowly beating out competitor "910" with 103,344 votes to 98,253.
The National Parks Service commended the 16 bears who participated in the "battle of size, skill, snack acquisition, and strategic loafing." They thanked the bears for their "involuntarily participation" in this unique event.
Backpack, named after his tendency to climb on his mother Holly's back in the Brooks River, has a fan base describing him as having both "chonk" and "badonk." His mother, Holly, won the Fat Bear Week competition in 2019.
Despite Backpack's popularity, he had critics, with some arguing that 910, a female bear who raised both her biological cub and an adopted one, deserved the title.
The final weights of the finalists remain undisclosed, but adult male brown bears typically gain up to 25% of their body weight during the summer months, with the largest males weighing over 540kg.
Fat Bear Week attracts global attention, with over 1.7 million votes cast from 100+ countries last year.