The beefiest of all bruins are about to vie for the crown to become this year’s heavyweight champion, as the 11th annual Fat Bear Week — a sensation that captures the attention of millions across the globe — is set to begin.
Fat Bear Week, which started in 2014, is an annual competition where brown bears from Alaska’s Katmai National Park face off in head-to-head matchups — similar to a March Madness bracket — with people around the world voting for who they believe is the fattest of the bunch.
This year’s bracket will be revealed on Monday at 7 p.m. ET, according to the competition’s website. People can vote online from Sept. 23 through Sept. 30.
The annual competition, which is a single-elimination tournament, celebrates these rotund creatures who have successfully scarfed down enough salmon to “endure winter hibernation.”
The bears, who live in the Brooks River area of the national park, can gain a few hundred pounds in fat before they retire for the winter.
From late June through September, adult male bears in this area typically weigh anywhere from 700 to 900 pounds, but some can reach up to 1,200 pounds. Adult females are slightly smaller by about one-third to one-half of the male’s weight.
For each matchup, participants are asked to “vote for the bear you believe best exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears.” The bear with the most votes advances to the next round, with only one being crowned the fattest.
Last year, 128 Grazer — the first female bear to win in back-to-back competitions — was the first mother bear to claim victory, with about 1.2 million votes cast collectively during the event.
This year’s Fat Bear Week Champion will be crowned on Sept. 30.