In this photo provided by the National Park Service is Grazer, the winner of the 2023 Fat Bear Contest, at Katmai National Park, Alaska on Sept. 14, 2023.
In a storyline better befitting a melodrama than a popularity vote, Grazer won her second Fat Bear Contest Tuesday by defeating the male behemoth that killed her cub this summer.
Grazer beat Chunk by more than 40,000 votes cast by fans watching live cameras atexplore.org of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve.
Fans cast votes online for their favorite chunky competitor in tournament-style brackets that begins with 12 bears. They picked the bear they believe best exemplifies winter preparedness by the fat they have accumulated over the summer feeding on the sockeye salmon that return to Brooks River.
The bears often perch at the top of a falls in the river, grabbing leaping salmon out of the air as the fish attempt to hurdle the waterfall to spawn upstream.
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This is where Grazer’s cub died after it slipped over the waterfall and was killed by Chunk, perhaps the most dominant brown bear on the river. Grazer fought Chunk in an effort to save the cub, but it later died. The death was captured on the live cameras.
Another death was captured live by the cameras just last week, delaying the release of the tournament bracket for a day. Bear 402, a female bear that was supposed to be a contestant in this year’s contest, was killed by a male brown bear the day the brackets were expected to be released.
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Grazer has conspicuously blond ears and a long, straight muzzle, according to her bio page at explore.org. “She is a formidable presence on Brooks River. Her fearlessness and strength have earned her respect, with most bears avoiding confrontation,” it says.
Her other surviving cub from her third litter placed second two weeks ago in the Fat Bear Junior contest.
Chunk is perhaps the largest bear on the river, with narrow-set eyes, dark brown fur and a distinctive scar across his muzzle, his bio says. He used his size to rise to the top of the river hierarchy this year and secured the prime fishing spots.
“Chunk’s confidence and aggression paid off, allowing him to feast on 42 salmon in 10 hours,” it says. “His physical success is evident in his bulky form.”
Adult male brown bears typically weigh 600 to 900 pounds (about 270 to 410 kilograms) in mid-summer. By the time they are ready to hibernate after feasting on migrating and spawning salmon — each eats as many as 30 fish per day — large males can weigh well over 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms). Females are about one-third smaller.
The annual contest, which drew more than 1.3 million votes last year, is a way to celebrate the resiliency of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state’s southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands.
In addition to the live cameras, Katmai has become a bucket list tourist destination and viewing stands have been built on the river to allow people to watch the brown bears fish for salmon.
