Welcome to Fat Bear Week 2021! Katmai National Park and Preserve’s brown bears spent the summer gorging on 4,500-calorie salmon, and they’ve transformed into rotund giants, some over 1,000 pounds. The Alaskan park is holding its annual playoff-like competition for the fattest of the fat bears (you can vote online between Sept. 29 through Oct. 5). Mashable will be following all the ursine activity.
Your vote matters.
The celebration of Katmai National Park and Preserve’s extremely fat bears has reached its competitive climax. Two impressively filled-out bears earned their spot in the tournament’s final match, and you can vote for the champion on Tuesday, Oct. 5 between 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET (9 a.m to 6 p.m. PT) on explore.org’s website. Explore.org is the organization that livestreams Katmai’s remote bears throughout the summer and fall. (It’s quite a technological feat.)
The 2021 showdown pits the extremely successful bears Walker (bear 151) and Otis (bear 480).
Like many of Katmai’s brown bears, these two bears exploited fantastic runs of salmon in an ecologically rich (and protected) ecosystem. The bears are now in the final stages of preparing for their long, harsh winter hibernation, wherein they subsist on their fat stores to survive.
That’s why a fat bear is a successful bear. In the images below you can see both Otis and Walker’s major 2021 transformation:
Walker’s 2021 Fat Bear Week transformation.
Credit: L. LAW / NPS
Otis’ 2021 Fat Bear Week transformation
Credit: N. BOAK / C. SPENCER / NPS
Who’s Walker?
Walker, numbered 151 by Katmai biologists, is a large male brown bear who’s entered his prime. He’s one of the largest bears at Katmai’s Brooks River (where the bears feast on salmon), estimated at weighing some 1,000 pounds last fall. As the 14-year-old Walker has matured, he’s grown increasingly dominant, meaning he asserts himself over other bears and earns access to the best fishing spots. It shows.
Who’s Otis?
Otis, numbered 480, is a Katmai legend. At around a quarter-century old, he’s an elder, aging bear, and is missing many teeth. Yet Otis continues to persevere. Each summer, he continually grows to one of the river’s fattest bears, despite his age. His patient fishing style, where he moves little and incessantly stares down into the river for fish, resulted in profound success this summer. Otis transformed from a gaunt-looking bear to a rotund animal in just seven weeks.
Once again, you can vote on fatbearweek.org on Oct. 5, which the park calls “Fat Bear Tuesday.”
