Meet your FAT BEAR WEEK 2025 champion.Chunk the Hunk. The Chunkster. 32 Chunk.All hail the new king of Brooks River ?
Fat Bear Week 2025 winner crowned
After a week of voting, Explore.org has announced the victor of its 2025 Fat Bear Week competition: Chunk, a huge brown bear with a broken jaw. Chunk overcame 11 formidably large opponents to take the title, receiving over 30,000 votes more than his opponent – Bear 856 – in the final head-to-head last night, September 30. It was Chunk’s first win after coming 2nd in the previous 2 contests.
Explore.org hosts Fat Bear Week every year to celebrate the hibernation prep for brown bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska. In 2025, Fat Bear Week ran from September 23 to 30. At this time of year, brown bears are packing on the pounds with the goal of surviving winter. And despite his broken jaw – likely incurred in a fight with another bear – Chunk was able to eat enough salmon to outgrow his opponents, leaving him with an impressive estimated weight of 1,200 pounds (544 kg).
For Fat Bear Week, the bears are paired up in head-to-head matches, similar to your March Madness brackets. And people get to vote on who they think is the chubbiest simply by clicking the picture of their chosen bear. Chunk received 96,350 votes in the final matchup, while over 1.5 million votes were cast throughout this year’s tournament. That’s a record for Fat Bear Week, explore.org’s Mike Fitz announced in the finale livestream.
Why are fat bears important?
Explore.org explains:
During hibernation, bears do not eat or drink and lose 1/3 of their body weight. Their winter survival depends on accumulating ample fat reserves before entering the den.
To get fat, bears gorge on the richest and most accessible foods they can find. In Katmai National Park that often means salmon. Dozens of bears gather at Brooks River to feast on salmon from late June until mid-October. Perhaps no other river on Earth offers bears the chance to feed on salmon at one place for so long.
Bottom line: Meet Chunk, the winner of Fat Bear Week 2025! Despite a broken jaw, this mighty bear overcame 11 opponents for his first victory in the annual competition.
Read more: Katmai bear cam season begins now! Livestream here
Salmon, coming home after a century, are our lifeform of the week
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