‘Go big or go home!’ Voting opens in Fat Bear Week

The bears are back, bigger and fatter than ever, ready to battle for the title of the fattest of them all.

Voting for the annual Fat Bear Week competition kicks off on 23 September, pitting bears in Alaska against each other as they eat their way to adequate fatness to prepare for winter hibernation.

As Chunk and Grazer, a few of the resident bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska, scoop up salmon from the Brooks River, voters from more than 100 countries take in the action from live web cams.

Organisers encourage voters to pick the bear you believe “best exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears”.

Success gets them a spot on the wall of champions, but more importantly helps them survive the winter.

Last year’s winner, Grazer, took the title for the second time, besting Chunk by thousands of votes. Both are back again in 2025, and are early favourites among the 12 brown bears in this year’s contest.

Chunk suffered a broken jaw earlier this year, potentially hampering her success, while Grazer is a defensive mama bear raising her third litter of cubs.

“Chunk’s resilience, Grazer’s skill, and Bucky’s intelligence are only a few of the amazing stories we followed at Brooks River this summer,” said Charlie Annenberg, founder of explore.org, which produces the contest in partnership with the National Park Service and the Katmai Conservancy. “The bears have grown as fat as I’ve ever seen them thanks to another exceptional salmon run. Go big or go home!”

Katmai is home to some of the world’s largest brown bears.

Adult males average up to 408kg ( 900lb) in mid-summer and often pack on the equivalent of 25% of their bodyweight by autumn. The largest males often tip the scales at more than 540kg.

The contest is the brainchild of former ranger Mike Fitz. What started as a one-day competition with about 1,700 votes in 2014 has since gone global, drawing and educating fans across the world.

As many as 10 million people have tuned in to the Katmai livestreams in recent years to watch the bears vie for fish. Last year, about 1.2 million votes were cast from more than 100 countries.