Fat Bear Winner!
Mama Bear beats the Big Bruiser:
In an exciting and personal rematch from last year, 128 Grazer and 32 Chunk faced off again in the final round of 2024’s Fat Bear Week contest.And this year, embattled mama bear 128 Grazer has retained the crown of the most popular fat bear in the annual online competition, which is observing its 10th anniversary this year.
Grazer more than doubled Chunk’s vote count, garnering 71,248 votes to her male rival’s 30,468 votes. The nature site Explore.org administers the online voting, which saw a final tally for the weeklong contest of 1,041,124, according to the site around 9:30 p.m. ET Tuesday.
The contest is held by Katmai National Park & Preserve to promote public awareness about the wild brown bears of Alaska. Like scenic drives to see the changing leaves, it’s become a popular fall ritual in the United States and around the world.
She’s the first female bear to win it and it was a grudge match:
128 Grazer and 32 Chunk are developing quite the history between them, and it’s not all in the manmade, online brackets-style competition, either.
Grazer has “a long, straight muzzle and conspicuously blond ears,” according to Explore.org. More important than her looks, though, she’s “a highly defensive” mother bear who has raised three litters. She’s given a lot of respect and a wide berth by other bears.
But sometimes accidents of nature and the intentions of rivals intervene in the life of a mother bear.
In July 2024, both of her first-year cubs were swept over the Brook Falls, where the Katmai bears gather to fatten up on salmon ahead of their winter hibernations, according to Explore.org. The rushing water in the Brooks River swept her cubs toward Chunk, currently the most dominant male bear on the river.
As large, male bears sometimes do, Chunk went on the offense. And as mother bears do, Grazer went on defense for her cubs. But Chunk was able to injure the cub nearest to him before Grazer could stop him. That cub later died from its injuries, Explore.org and Katmai said.
The surviving cub, called 128’s Spring Cub, was a contender in the 2024 Fat Bear Junior contest held in late September. That contest was won by 909Jr., a “large-bodied nearly 4-year-old female cub.”
Don’t mess with Mama Bears.
There’s a message in there somewhere.
Update: