It’s the battle of the bears in Alaska.
The fattest and floofiest bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park are competing as part of the popular Fat Bear Week, an annual head-to-head competition aimed at crowning a champion brown bear. And the 2025 competition is heavier than ever before.
“Fat Bear Week enables people from around the world to actively engage in learning about bears while cheering for their favorite competitor,” Mark Sturm, the superintendent of Katmai National Park, said in a statement, adding “The astonishing salmon runs in Katmai are essential to the survival of the park’s ecosystem and brown bears.”
Outdoor and wildlife enthusiasts can log on each day to cast their votes online for a different set of match ups in a March Madness-style bracket through Sept. 30. Each entrant is numbered and photographed twice during the year with a svelte before photo usually taken in June or July and a hefty after photo taken in September. The adult male bears generally average around 700 to 900 pounds by mid-summer, but can swell to over 1,200 pounds by late summer and fall while eating to prepare for hibernation, according to the Fat Bear Week contest.
Chase Dekker Wild-Life Images/Getty Images
“Fat bears are successful bears,” the contest explained. “They exemplify the richness of Katmai National Park and Bristol Bay, Alaska, a wild region that is home to more brown bears than people and the largest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet.”
One of the contenders in this year’s competition is the aptly-named 32 Chunk, a large adult male with dark brown fur estimated to weigh even more than 1,200 pounds, fattening up despite his broken (and healing) jaw. Another contestant, named 602, boasts grizzled-brown fur and a “peculiar stomping dance that he displays in moments when his excitement level appears to be high.”
The contest, now in its 11th year, is organized by Explore.org, an outdoor live camera network, in partnership with the Katmai Conservancy, which supports conservation efforts in the region.
Katmai National Park is one of Travel + Leisure readers’ favorite national parks and home to one of the largest populations of brown bears. Visitors who head to the remote and lesser-visited park must prepare for bear encounters by hiking in groups, making noise in areas where visibility is limited, and keeping their distance from animals. In fact, park goers are prohibited from approaching bears within 50 yards.
