It’s Chunk v Gully in Fat Bear Week’s annual Alaskan contest
The “weight’ is over
The “weight” is over: Fat Bear Week is here!
Get out your score cards. Key up the Internet live streams. And don’t forget to vote online for your favorite ursine gluttons feasting on Alaskan sockeye salmon.
Fat Bear Week is an annual Alaska Peninsula brown bear’s fatso popularity contest. The heaviest bear doesn’t always win. Charm counts.
Hundreds of thousands of web cam viewers across the globe can watch their favorite bears gorge themselves ahead of their annual hibernation in the Katmai National Park and Preserve, which is about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage.The park runs the program along with Explore.org, which is an online live nature network.
Think of it as a tubby bear version of the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week.”
Ultimately, the contest’s organizers at the park and Explore.org hope people will contribute to the post-event fundraiser in early October. Last year more than 1.7 million votes from 100 countries were cast in the week-long challenge to select the bulkiest bear. The park’s nonprofit partner, the Katmai Conservancy, raised about $900,000 in donations, the group said on its website, even though the game is free to play.
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Fat Bear Week started Tuesday, Sept. 22nd and online voting runs for eight days, with the ursine winner crowned on Sept. 29th. The event features online programming with live sportscaster-like commentary, along with educational programs on wild bear habitats and behavior and conservation.
There’s even a park ranger Q & A.
This year, Chunk, the returning champion of an estimated 1,200 portly-pounds will defend his rotund honor in a field of 16 brown bears, all competing to win the publics’ hearts in the bracket-elimination contest – like basketball’s March Madness.
His closest rival is Gully, son of Grazer who was a two-time winner in years past.
The contest is a smart move to raise money, said Alex DePaoli, an associate teaching professor of marketing at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business.
“Having the element of the game is the perfect way of getting people invested in one individual bear,” he said. “It’s entertainment for charity. If you build an emotional investment with just an individual, you’re more likely to care and to give donations. It’s a parasocial relationship.”
The game works because live cameras are stationed throughout the park that show people the bears as individuals, he said.
The camera shots include stations near Brooks Falls on the Brooks River, where brown bears are often spotted catching fish, eating their fill, and napping in the sun, according to information published by the park.
The brown bears, which the park said locals liken to smaller versions of grizzly bears, need to load up on calories because getting fat is survival.
The animals go into hibernation, which is a kind of a sleep so deep they don’t wake, stir, hunt, or forage; and their bodies live off their fat fuel until springtime, according to the park’s online website.
“The thing with Fat Bear Week is that you get people to root for something,” DePaoli said.
The prize for guessing the winner? Bear bragging rights.
