Get ready, humans! It’s time to choose your favorite Alaska brown bears for Fat Bear Week and celebrate the iconic animals’ yearly life cycle.
Each fall, Katmai National Park’s brown bears get fatter and fatter — and fatter still.
The live feed from Brooks Falls promises action-packed viewing in the coming weeks as the ursines hunt salmon swimming upstream.
The bears are just doing their thing, getting ready to hibernate. But whether they know it or not, hundreds of thousands of humans around the world will be watching anxiously, rooting for their favorite bear to win the annual single-elimination Fat Bear Week tournament.
Katmai wildlife officials have held the annual “competition” each year since 2014. In the de facto eating contest, burly bears like 32 “Chunk,” 128 “Grazer,” and perennial kingpin 480 “Otis” go head to head, bracket-style.
This year’s tourney kicks off on Oct. 5 and runs through Oct. 11. If it’s possible that a contest involving wildlife could get any cuter, Fat Bear Junior — where you can vote on the cutest chubby cubbies — also returns tomorrow and runs through Friday.

Brooks Falls Bustles for Fat Bear Week
