At Katmai National Park in Alaska, the results of the annual Fat Bear Week contest have been announced. The winner was a brown bear numbered 89 nicknamed Backpack. It received more than one hundred thousand votes in the final and edged out its rival by a minimal margin. We already reported on this earlier; now we are publishing the video.
This adult male, weighing from 450 to 550 kilograms, received more than 103 thousand votes in the final, beating its rival, numbered 910, by just a few thousand votes. In total, 16 bears took part in the tournament, and the total number of votes exceeded two million.
The contest is now in its twelfth year and helps millions of people around the world observe the lives of brown bears. The animals are preparing for a long winter hibernation, actively feeding on salmon during the spawning season. Gaining fat is the key to surviving the harsh conditions of the peninsula.
Backpack is known for its calm temperament and its habit, as a cub, of riding on the back of its mother Holly. She, by the way, also became a winner of the contest in 2019. The bear is now about twenty years old, and it prefers to fish peacefully rather than get into fights with its kin.
About two thousand two hundred brown bears live in the park. Their well-being depends directly on the cleanliness of the rivers and the abundance of salmon. Any disruption in the chain "river — fish — bear" affects the entire ecosystem.
Online voting turns watching the animals into a fascinating process. People see how the bears change over the summer and begin to better understand why it is important to preserve their habitat. The contest is not just entertainment, but a way to draw attention to the real threats facing the population.
Backpack's victory is a reminder that success in nature often depends not only on strength, but also on the ability to adapt and avoid unnecessary conflicts. Such stories help people see wild animals not merely as objects of spectacle, but as part of a complex and fragile system on which the health of the planet depends.
