‘Backpack’ wins Fat Bear Week

Backpack in the late summer, starting to gain weight for the winter hibernation.

The votes are in, and a new fat bear champion has been crowned in Alaska: 89 “Backpack.”

He earned his nickname by climbing on his mother’s back as a young cub 20 years ago, and won fans with his story of recovery after a leg injury in 2007. According to his official biography on the Fat Bear Week site, he opts for a “quiet strength” instead of aggression when seeking prime spots for fish.

“He’s a Lover, Not a Fighter!!” one fan wrote on the nature cam network Explore.org, which puts on the contest with the National Park Service and Katmai Conservancy.

Backpack defeated 910, a female dubbed “Dancing Queen” by some fans in a contest that included a record 16 contenders, not counting some accompanying cubs. The competition has unfolded every year since its first iteration in 2014 at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, unbeknownst to the portly participants.

“For the bears, there was no campaigning. No strategy meetings. No polling,” the National Park Service wrote in a Facebook post. “Just bears doing what bears do best: eating, fishing, napping, more eating, and getting gloriously chunky.”

The brown bears aren’t feasting on the sockeye salmon in Brooks River just for fun; putting on the pounds is crucial for their survival as they prepare for hibernation in later fall.

“They’re all winners,” Sarah Bruce, a Katmai park ranger, said in an interview earlier Tuesday. “They’re all set up to survive winter hibernation.”

This year’s winner was a “nepo baby” - nepo cub? - but so was his rival. Both 910 and Backpack had winning lineages: Her mother was two-time winner 409 “Beadnose,” and his mother was 435 “Holly,” the 2019 victor.

The legacies are a testament to the bears’ habits, and to the histories that park officials have compiled over years of observation.

“As we move forward into the future, because the same bears return to the Brooks River every year and female bears raise their young on the Brooks River … we’re going to continue to see the generations kind of cycle through,“ Bruce said.

Interest in the bracket-style tournament this year was so significant that early voting overwhelmed the system and forced an extension of the first round. Bruce said the number of votes had surpassed last year’s total of 1.7 million, not just because there were more polls this time around.

“We have more interest,” she said. “That’s been mind-blowing. ... It’s incomprehensible just how many more people are finding it each year and the love that it continues to get.”

Even Google got into the spirit, offering a bear animation for the “Fat Bear Week” search that allowed users to click on a salmon to feed a bear and bulk it up.

On message boards, enthusiasts campaigned for their favorite finalists and highlighted assets such as “serious badonkadonk,” “thunder thighs” and “chonky bearness.”

According to the National Park Service, adult males can weigh 600 to 900 pounds by mid-summer, but balloon to more than 1,000 by October and November. Weight estimates for some of this year’s participants ranged from 1,055 to 1,274 pounds, but the winner isn’t chosen purely on flab.

Fans often consider the bears’ backstories and develop a fondness for individual contestants they can watch on live cameras.

The competitors are focused on a higher calling.

“The bears have no idea this is happening,” Bruce said. “They just want to get fat and survive winter.”