2025 Fat Bear Week is upon us, and with it, a chance to vote on the fattest bear at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska. Home to some of the world’s largest brown bears, Katamai National Park’s annual celebration features its biggest salmon eaters, giving fans of fat bears a chance to vote on their favorites before the bears use that stored fat to survive the winter.
This year’s bears are among the fattest the Brooks River has to offer. Voting begins tomorrow with a first-round match-up of champions. 2025 Fat Bear Jr. winner, 128, squares off against the 2022 Fat Bear Jr. champion, 609, a five-year-old cub of 909, who recently emancipated herself from her mother. Whoever wins will be mashing it up with 602, who earned a buy-in for being so large. Known on the Brooks River as “Flo-tato,” he is renowned for his stomping dance that fans affectionately call “the Mashed Potatoes.”
Other bears competing throughout the week include 503, a resourceful bear that some believed wouldn’t survive two seasons. Their mother abandoned them as a yearling, but hard times make for charming bears, as evidenced by 503’s personality. He’ll have to put on the charm for 901, the 9-year-old Knack Knack Beach regular who, according to Katmai National Park’s Naomi Boak, “has never been fatter.” The winner will face 32, a.k.a. “Chunk,” last year’s runner-up, who has been nursing a broken jaw that some speculate he received in a fight over a female. It doesn’t sound like 503 or 901’s charms will work on Chunk, but they’ll give it their best.
Find the bracket below, meet the rest of the bears over at FatBearWeek.com, and celebrate these resilient bears that need to fatten up as quickly as possible to survive hibernation. Voting begins tomorrow at 12 P.M. EST and runs through September 30.
