Backpack, officially designated Bear 89, has been named the chunky champion of Fat Bear Week after a contest held at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. The event, which has run for 12 years, pits brown bears from the park’s 2,200‑strong population against one another in a single‑elimination, bracket‑style tournament.
Backpack won the finals with 103,334 votes, edging out Bear 910, which received 98,253 votes, according to data from explore.org. Park officials posted the result on Facebook, noting that the votes and social media posts from visitors turned the week into a collective story shaped by thousands of voices.
Fat Bear Week, launched in 2014, is an interactive initiative that educates the public about coastal brown bears, the close relatives of grizzlies. Last year’s champion, Chunk (Bear 32), weighed an estimated 1,200 pounds before being eliminated in the first round by Bucky, who later lost to Backpack.
The bears in the tournament must regularly visit the Brooks River, where salmon run in late June and provide the fat reserves needed for winter hibernation. Adult males typically weigh 600–900 pounds in midsummer and can exceed 1,000 pounds before hibernation. Females are about one‑third lighter. Bears can consume up to 30 fish a day, and during hibernation they lose about a third of their body weight. The competition also highlighted five bear families, including Bear 132 and her three cubs, who reached the semifinals before losing to Bear 910.
