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How many bears are there?
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FAT BEAR WEEK!
Fall 2024
what is FAT BEAR WEEK?
Who should I vote for?
Getting fat before winter is the goal, yet brown bears find success and overcome hardship in many ways. Mother bears must feed, nurture, and protect their cubs. An older bear can have difficulty finding access to preferred fishing spots due to competition with larger and younger bears. Large adult males maintain their high rank in the hierarchy by challenging competitors. Cubs and subadult (teenage) bears grow proportionally more each year than even the biggest adults. You can also vote for the bear who you think is the largest and fattest. In short, Fat Bear Week is a subjective competition. Learn more about the Fat Bear Week bears, download your bracket to predict your fat bear winner, and campaign for your favorite candidate using #FatBearWeek on social media.
what is FAT BEAR WEEK?
Why are fat bears important?
Katmai’s brown bears are fattest in late summer and early fall. It is the end-product of a summer-long effort to satisfy their profound hunger and prepare for winter hibernation. During hibernation, bears do not eat or drink and lose one-third of their body weight. Their winter survival depends on accumulating ample fat reserves before entering the den.
To get fat, bears gorge on the richest and most accessible foods they can find. In Katmai National Park that often means salmon. Dozens of bears gather at Brooks River to feast on salmon from late June until mid October. Perhaps no other river on Earth offers bears the chance to feed on salmon for so long.
Fat bears are successful bears. They exemplify the richness of Katmai National Park and Bristol Bay, Alaska, a wild region that is home to more brown bears than people and the largest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet.
MINI-BRACKET