FAT BEAR WEEK 2019

The best time of the year is here! Not Halloween, not autumn, not just the season keeping our devout Christmas music players and decorators alike from going absolutely bananas—even better: Fat Bear Week. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, it's even better than you think and yes, a winner has been announced.

For those of you unaware, Fat Bear Week is an annual competition hosted by Katmai National Park. Located on the southern Alaskan peninsula, Katmai is home to ancient, hardened lava flows, abundant salmon near waterfalls and of course, a plentiful amount of brown bears which absolutely feast on abundant salmon near waterfalls. 

Over the past week, employees and rangers from Katmai National Park have been asking the internet to participate in Fat Bear Week. Arranged in March Madness style, the public is asked to complete a bracket, pitting bears against one another for the prize of naming the fattest bear. 

Katmai National Park's Fat Bear Week 2019 bracket

The winner of each match up is decided through the park's Facebook page posting pictures and having the public analyze which is the fattest bear—tallies being kept by likes. This viral sensation has been going strong since 2014, but 2019 was a tricky year for guessing the fattest bear. 

Each year, on a day designated as "Fat Bear Tuesday", the park reveals their winner for the year. This year, it was a bear named 435 Holly. Dubbed the "Queen of Corpulence", the park's announcement read "She is fat. She is fabulous. She is 435 Holly! All hail Holly whose healthy heft will help her hibernate until the spring." 

NPS photo/ L. Carter

That is a fat bear!

435 Holly bearly beat out her competition, Lefty. Named for his short left ear, Lefty was not necessarily the crowd pick. When first arriving in the contest in 2015, he oftentimes was challenging other, more dominant bears for food and successfully stole fish from female bears. However, in the last few years, Lefty has calmed down so much and now waits for his own food. 

source

I'm not sure about you, but I am certainly excited to participate in Fat Bear Week 2020.