Unwanted fat Bear Week 2020 crowns its big winner

(CNN) — Following gorging on salmon all summer and slide, one Alaskan brown bear is the fattest of all.

Bear 747, a blubbery beast at Katmai Nationwide Park and Protect, was voted the winner of this year’s Extra fat Bear 7 days competitors, a celebration of the park’s bulging bears as they fatten up ahead of hibernation.

The winner bear was to start with recognized by park officials in 2004 but had under no circumstances created it to the finals of Unwanted fat Bear Week. But 747 outdid himself this yr, in accordance to the park — he could’ve been ready to hibernate as early as July with the way his tummy hung, but he continued to feast, narrowly beating out his beefy runner-up, Chunk.

The fatter the bear, the healthier they’ll be when they arise from hibernation. The nationwide park’s bears fatten up before they hibernate for the winter, when they should live off their body fat outlets while they waiting out the chilly weather in their dens.

Fats bears prosper in Katmai National Park, specially on the Brooks River. It’s of the most significant and healthiest “runs” of salmon — that’s when salmon migrate upstream and lay eggs on riverbeds — in the environment, according to the park. And in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, where section of the park is situated, brown bears outnumber the human people.

Bear 747 is a humble victor. To celebrate his acquire, he’ll almost certainly do what he constantly does — chow down on salmon in preparation for hibernation.

“When questioned what he intends to do now that he has received, the only reaction was a glance prior to heading again to fishing in the Jacuzzi near the Brooks Falls, 1 of his favored fishing spots,” the park stated.