There are two single elimination tournaments that stand above all else: NCAA’s March Madness and Fat Bear Week.
If you weren’t following along with the Fat Bear Week competition like your life depended on it, what are you doing with your life? There’s basically nothing more important than watching and voting on Katmai National Park’s chunkiest bears.
This time of the year, the bears in the Alaskan national park, as well as every other place that bruins call home, are all upping their caloric intake to get ready for hibernation season.
Katmai National Park already had cameras set up live streaming bear activity in the park, and some smart son-of-a-b*tch said “Hey, why don’t we make up a fat bear contest based on the bears in our park that people can vote on?”
This year’s Fat Bear Week was one for the ages, especially after it was on the brink of not even happening at all. Thank God the government didn’t shut down, otherwise we might not have been able to crown Katmai National Park’s fattest bear.
And speaking of crowning the fattest of the fat bears, the champion chunk was finally announced this past week. Most of the voting throughout the bracket-style tournament was close, but the vote for the final matchup was a landslide.
Over 1.3 million votes were cast in this year’s Fat Bear Week, and a majority of those came in this year’s championship matchup between Grazer (Bear 128) and Chunk (Bear 32). Grazer took home the Fat Bear crown after receiving 108,321 votes versus Chunk’s 23,134 votes.
Katmai National Park posted an announcement of the winner of the annual contest on their social media accounts, saying:
“Voters have spoken LOUDLY. The gutsy girl grounded the guy with a gut. 32 Chunk, proved his prominent posterior was worthy of a whopping win.
But in the end, Chunk got Grazered. Let’s crown our Queen that’s thicker than a bowl of oatmeal, 128 Grazer!”
Grazer the bear is known as one of the largest female bears in Katmai National Park, and is also famously one of the best anglers of the Brooks Rivers.
She fattened up on salmon over the summer, and her hard work and dedication paid off. Shoutout to Grazer for being named the 2023 Fat Bear Week champion, and here’s to next year.
May the greatest tradition for fat and chunky bears live on forever…
