Gentle giant ‘Backpack’ declared winner of Alaska’s Fat Bear Week

After a week of fierce competition, Backpack emerged victorious as Fat Bear Week champion, the heftiest bear of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve.

The nonprofit running the longstanding contest announced Tuesday that the bear, known for his pacifist nature, won with more than 100,000 votes, narrowly beating Bear 910 with just over 50% of the poll.

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. Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies.

Last year’s winner, Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — clinched his victory at an estimated 1,200 pounds. He was handily defeated in the first round of competition this year by Bucky, who went on to lose a faceoff against Backpack, known officially as Bear 89.

The event this year featured 16 bears vying for the heavyweight title in a single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. All voting is done online at www.fatbearweek.org, and the winner was declared Tuesday evening after the final poll closed. The…

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