The salmon are flying, the bears are bulking, and Katmai National Park in Alaska is once again asking the world to pick a champion. Fat Bear Week started Monday, September 23, and runs through Tuesday, September 30. Katmai is again inviting fans near and far to cast a vote for the brown bear most ready to survive an Alaskan winter.
Fat Bear Week, in its 11th year, has become a media phenomenon, with a tremendous impact on Katmai National Park. What began as a social media campaign in 2014 has evolved into a worldwide tradition. In 2024, more than a million votes poured in from 100 countries, a testament to the event’s broad appeal. The contest also serves as a reminder that fat, for wild bears, is a lifeline.
Expert hunters, these bears can catch 30 salmon or up to 120 pounds per day. An average male bear will weigh between 700-900 pounds by mid-summer. By late summer, their weight will be about 1,200 pounds.
Watch live cams here: https://explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls
Participation is easy: visit www.fatbearweek.org during the tournament window, study the photos and bios, and make your pick.
This may be the strangest beauty contest you’ve ever heard of because there’s no swimsuit or talent competition – it’s a contest to see which contestant can gain the most weight and win the hearts of fans worldwide.
At Brooks Falls, where sockeye salmon hurl themselves up the whitewater, Katmai’s bears spend late summer turning calories into strategy. The fatter the bear, the better the odds of making it through months of hibernation. That simple survival truth has become an unlikely global spectacle complete with brackets, upsets, and a title match announced on September 30.
Bear catching salmon: Photo by Ranger Keith James Moore
“The astonishing salmon runs in Katmai are essential to the survival of the park’s ecosystem and brown bears,” said Katmai Park Superintendent Mark Sturm. “Fat Bear Week enables people from around the world to actively engage in learning about bears while cheering for their favorite competitor.”
The premise is equal parts fun and serious. At fatbearweek.org, the park and its partners post a March Madness-style bracket with head-to-head matchups. Voters choose the bear whose body transformation best tells the story of the season — spring-skinny to autumn-ample — until one heavyweight claims the crown.
Bears fishing for salmon: Photo by Michelle Campanis
The bear cubs just finished their own mini tournament. Fat Bear Junior voting took place September 18-19.
This area is home to one of the planet’s healthiest wild salmon runs and boasts one of the largest brown bear populations. Bristol Bay’s abundance fuels Katmai’s entire food web, turning fall into a living biology lesson. You want to watch long enough on the live cameras for patterns to emerge — tactics at the falls, pecking orders on the riverbank, and cubs learning fishing techniques from the adults.
“Fat Bear Week” is a collaboration among the National Park Service, Explore.org, and the Katmai Conservancy. The partners say the goal is engagement — turning a global audience to an informed audience. The votes don’t change river temperatures or alter salmon returns, but they do build a constituency for a beautiful place and its wildlife.
As September comes to an end, and the bears finish their last big meals, the bracket will shrink to a final showdown. On September 30, one notably rotund contender will lumber away with internet glory.
Everyone is a winner. The bears bulk up, and the public that gets to watch it happen, one leap and one bite at a time.
Melanie Staten is a public relations consultant with her husband, Vince
