Fat Bear Week

Yesterday I received an e-mail that mentioned Fat Bear Week. With such a humorous name, I had to investigate and ended up voting in the contest that is run annually. I wish I would have heard about the contest sooner to help send traffic to the site as it is actually a great event and something everyone should know about.

My youngest daughter spent the summer in Alaska as a kayak guide near Valdez. I knew she would be spending the entire summer living in a tent and one of my concerns for her was that she might have too close of an encounter with a grizzly bear. She is now back home and had plenty of experiences meeting various bears, including one just outside her tent. Fortunately none of her bear sightings required medical attention but it exposed a fear I have about man-eating bears. I think we all want to keep our distance from them.

Fat Bear Week is a contest put on by the staff at Katmai National Park. It started in 2014 and gives viewers the chance to vote for the brown bear that has gotten the fattest during the summer from a diet of salmon. They show before and after photos of specific bears and anyone can vote on their favorites. They also have short bios for all of the bears in the contest so you get to know a little about each contestant. The reason it appealed to me is because of all the before/after photos I see for people dieting and this looked similar, only in reverse. Bears spend the summer building up fat stores so they can hibernate all winter. It is especially important for female bears who give birth mid-winter. If they do not have enough fat reserves, mothers will not give birth that year.

Yesterday I voted for my favorite bear and he ended up winning the contest: bear 747. His bio mentions that it is only fitting that his tag number is the same as that of Boeing's largest commercial jet aircraft. He also won the 2020 Fat Bear Week contest.

Fat Bear Week is a great use of the Internet because it allows everyone to view one of nature's most powerful creatures without being in danger. While I have a healthy fear of grizzly bears, it made them more personal and helped me want to protect them. I probably won't write a check to the Save-the-Grizzly-Bears foundation but I am more aware of their needs and apt to support measures relating to their habitat as opposed to falling back on my fears and the attitude of "protect the humans at all costs."

When I found out about Fat Bear Week, I let everyone in my family know. My kayak-guide daughter responded that she had been voting all week. I guess that shouldn't have surprised me as she is a fan of all things related to Alaska. Now I just need to add it to my calendar for next year so I remember to join in the fun.