Fat Bear Week is happening! Check out the contestants now, start voting Wednesday
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The 2023 lineup includes fan favorite Otis, who “moves less to catch more” according to the announcement video, and last year’s winner 747, who is rarely challenged for prime fishing spots. Now it’s time to meet the contenders:
Hey, fans of the annual Fat Bear Week online contest out of Alaska – it’s on!
It was touch and go there this past weekend while politicians in Washington raced to secure a last-minute deal to keep federal government services running until mid-November. Fat Bear Week was one of the programs that would have been halted during the shutdown.
But with a stopgap funding measure in place, bear fans can now turn their attention to the voting that matters to them: selecting a winner in the annual contest for the big lugs of Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska.
The 12 contestants were revealed at 7 p.m. EDT Monday, and the public can start voting noon Wednesday EDT, according to Katmai’s webpage on the contest.
Voting will conclude on October 10. The National Park Service said more than 1 million votes were cast for the 2022 contest, which was won by hefty bear 747 after a cheating scandal briefly disrupted the voting process.
Anyone who follows NCAA basketball brackets each March will recognize this stripped-down version.
“Rangers create a tournament style bracket pitting individual bears against each other. The public then votes to see who will advance each round,” according to the webpage. You can go to www.fatbearweek.org to vote.
