1.7M Votes Cast in Alaska's Fat Bear Week Contest

More than 1.7 million people from 100 countries are gathering online to celebrate bears getting delightfully chubby.

Fat Bear Week returns to Alaska's Katmai National Park for its 12th year, inviting the world to vote on which brown bear packed on the most pounds before winter hibernation. The single-elimination tournament runs from September 22 to 29, showcasing bears gorging on salmon at Brooks River.

What started as "Fat Bear Tuesday" on Facebook in 2014 has exploded into a global phenomenon. Park officials noticed the engagement was unlike anything they'd seen before, so they expanded it into a week-long event featuring live webcam footage from Explore.org.

This year brings especially exciting news. "There are more cubs at Brooks Camp this year than have been seen in a long time," says park superintendent Mark Sturm. Mike Fitz, resident naturalist at Explore.org, credits last year's massive salmon run for the baby boom.

The connection between salmon and bears tells a bigger story. Tens of millions of salmon return to this region annually, with hundreds of thousands moving through Brooks river alone. Well-fed mother bears are more likely to have cubs and larger litters, creating a ripple effect of thriving wildlife.

Fans already have their favorites picked out. Bear 910, a single mother this year, is described as "just a balloon." Bear 164, nicknamed Bucky, is dominating the river despite being under 10 years old. And last year's champion, Bear 32 "Chunk," is hoping for a comeback appearance.

The Ripple Effect

Fat Bear Week does more than celebrate adorable wildlife. It brings millions of people inside one of America's most remote national parks, located 260 miles southwest of Anchorage. Most viewers will never visit Katmai in person, but the webcams let them follow individual bears across seasons and years, forming deep connections with these wild animals.

"We see a lot of ourselves in brown bears," Fitz says. "We see how hard mother bears work to raise their cubs. We understand their hunger, at least on some level."

The livestreams don't shy away from nature's harsh realities either. Viewers witnessed 32 Chunk breaking his jaw last year and saw difficult moments between competing bears. But that transparency helps people understand what survival truly means in the wild.

For Fitz and countless viewers worldwide, Fat Bear Week offers something increasingly rare: "an opportunity to break away from the madness of the world and the rest of the internet."

Voting opens Monday for a week of celebrating nature's most successful bulking season.