Voting surged late Tuesday for a Alaskan brown bear named 901 but it wasn’t enough to put her in the champion’s circle in the annual Fat Bear Week tournament.
We explained Tuesday that Fat Bear Week is an annual competition from Alaska’s Katmai National Park. It is a single-elimination tournament based on web votes that decides “who is the fattest of the fat.” For each match-up, voters pick “the bear you believe best exemplifies fatness.” The bear with the most votes moves on to the next round and “only one will be crowned champion of Fat Bear Week.”
The winner? A bear named 747 and nicknamed “Bear Force One.”
Read more about the tournament and its end in a little-known publication called The Washington Post. That story contained this hilarious tweet summing up 901’s fatness.
But back to 901. Late Tuesday, 901 had 35,089 votes. Just hours later, the bear ended the competition with 56,876 votes. That’s 21,787 votes in a matter of hours — 38 percent of all of 901’s votes!
We hope our call ignited civic pride and helped push 901 closer to the title. But, giving credit where it’s due, 901 really is a fat bear. That’s a good thing, according to the park.
“Some of the largest brown bears on Earth make their home at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska,” reads the park’s website. “Brown bears get fat to survive and Fat Bear Week is an annual tournament celebrating their success in preparation for winter hibernation.”
As for 901, this year’s was her first competition. We hope she returns next year for another shot at Fat Bear Week’s chunky championship. Here’s how the park described her:
“She fishes throughout Brooks River and sometimes is keen to defend her fishing spots from other bears,” reads the biography site. “As a young adult in 2022, she continued to refine her fishing and social skills. This is a lifelong process for brown bears, but it is particularly important for young adult females. Bear 901 may soon experience a new challenge: raising cubs.”
