Fat Bear Week opens for Alaska’s heavyweight crown. Can Chunk, the 1,200-pound champ, win again?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — After a summer spent packing away sockeye salmon, Alaska’s heftiest brown bears are ready to throw their weight around.

Online voting began Tuesday for Fat Bear Week, the annual contest that pits the rotund residents of Katmai National Park and Preserve against each other for the title of most oversized ursine.

Last year’s winner, Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — is hungry for a repeat. Chunk’s weight in 2025 was estimated at 1,200 pounds, which gave him a narrow victory. This year he’s back and facing corpulent competition like Gully — aka Bear 903 — the offspring of two-time champion Grazer.

The contest, which is in its 12th year, celebrates the resilience of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state’s southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands. The animals gorge on the abundant salmon that return to the Brooks River, sometimes chomping the fish in midair as they make their way upstream to spawn.

The event this year features 16 bears facing off in a single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. All voting is done online at www.fatbearweek.org, with the winner declared Sept. 29. The public can watch…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business