Huge portions of salmon and a six-day struggle after, Fat Bear Week has a victor.
Brown bear 747 got 68,105 votes, defeating Bear 901 with 56,876 votes despite weighing an estimated 1,400 lbs (635 kg).
The result marks an end to Fat Bear Week 2022, which saw people from around the world vote for the fattest bruin at Alaska’s Katmai National Park.
The chow down spotlights the park’s famous brown bears as they feed in preparation for winter hibernation.
“Ultimately, 747 ripped apart the salmon – and the competition – to seize his 2nd crown as the 2022 Champion,” the park tweeted after Tuesday’s vote.
But Bear 747 nearly didn’t make it to the final because of an unprecedented case of voter fraud in the semi-finals that was quickly corrected by officials.
“It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent,” tweeted Katmai National Park on Sunday.
Since that minor hiccup, it’s been smooth sailing for the eighth annual Fat Bear Week – an extravaganza that celebrates the fearsome creatures as they prowl Katmai National Park’s eight million acre reserve.
To prepare for winter hibernation, each bear consumes around 500lbs of salmon from the park’s Brooks River during the summer.
Some get rather chunky in that timeframe, becoming nearly unrecognisable from when they first emerged out of last season’s hibernation.
Viewers from around the world tune in through live cameras placed around the river to watch the hungry bears accumulate a “preponderance of pudge”, say the organisers. They then cast a vote for their favourite in an online bracket that pits the bears against one another.
Voting opened on 5 October and officially closed on Tuesday evening.
Bear 747 is an exceptionally large animal that was crowned winner of Fat Bear Week in 2020.
He was first identified by Katmai park staff in 2004. Back then, 747 was a young up-and-comer unable to compete with more seasoned rivals for prime fishing locations.
Since then, 747 has become one of the largest brown bears on earth.
He is known to be an efficient fisher. This year, he hunted for salmon almost every day at Brooks River between late June and early September and was the river’s dominant player for much of the late summer.
Bear 901, a younger female adult, has never won Fat Bear Week, but her growth this year has been rather noticeable.
She has been working on refining her fishing and social skills and is known to be a no-nonsense defender of her fishing territory.
Bear 901 may also be expecting her first litter of cubs in the winter.
In order to be healthy enough to give birth, she has to put on as much weight as possible during the summer months – a big motivator for her growth this season, say experts.