Ladies and Gentlebears, welcome to Fat Bear Week 2025!
This annual, week-long competition from Katmai National Park is a celebration of a summer’s worth of hard work, a hat tip to a healthy ecosystem and a collection of survival stories. The bears have been busy feasting on salmon and stocking up on nutrients for their winter hibernation, and they’ve got the fall bods to prove it.
What started as a one-day event in 2014 conjuring the attention of a few thousand nature conservancy social media followers has grown into a week-long event boasting 1.2 million votes last year. There are fat bear fans in every part of the country, fat bear curriculums in classrooms, fat bear campaign posters, fat bear Spotify playlists and, of course, fat bear bets on who will be crowned the champion.
Similar to March Madness, Fat Bear Week is a bracket-style, single elimination tournament. New to the scene? I’m here to break it down for you:
Who’s in the bracket?
Not all the bears at Katmai are contenders. Rangers refill the roster largely based on the availability of spring and fall comparison photos, the bear being fat, and other unknown-to-us but reasonable reasons. The much-anticipated 2025 bracket was released bear-by-bear Monday live and on Youtube. You can find the complete list of all twelve competitors, before-and-after photos as well as short biographies at FatBearWeek.org.
How does it work / How do I vote?
Fat Bear Week is Tuesday, Sept. 23 through Tuesday, Sept. 30. Each day, one or two matches will be posted on FatBearWeek.org. Between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. AKST, you may vote for one bear in each match. The winner of each match is announced that evening and advances to the next round.
Which fat bear do I vote for?
The voting rubric is different for different people. Some folks believe you should only vote for the physically, empirically, literally, fattest bear. Some believe it’s a matter of weight gain. That is, you should determine which bear was most successful in becoming a fat bear between spring and fall. Others believe that fatness is a symbol of overall survival and that one should vote on a fat bear’s skills, success and story arc. Who here is giving off main character vibes? Vote for them!
Personally, I love Fat Bear Week for the poetry: the 230 Ben dancer in us. The 128 Grazer fierce mama in us. I love Fat Bear Week for the stories: 32 Chunk eating with a broken jaw; 503, the adoptee, who befriends all. Above all, I love Fat Bear Week for the kinship between bears, and between us and the bears.
Whether you’re a Fat Bear Week superfan or a newcomer to the scene, I hope you find a bear to throw your weight behind. We’re zooming in on a robust ecosystem that nourishes larger-than-life bears. Surviving was yesterday; today we’re thriving. Let’s celebrate!
