Over the past couple of weeks, the web has been having fun with what’s arguably essentially the most healthful week on the Web — Fats Bear Week. After a record-breaking week of votes, this yr’s winner has been topped, and the king of Fats Bear Week 2025 is 32 Chunk.
For the uninitiated, Fats Bear Week is an annual occasion held by Discover.org and Katmai Nationwide Park in Alaska. Because the inaugural Fats Bear Week in 2014, voters have tuned in and watched because the Alaska brown bears (additionally known as grizzly bears) gorge themselves on salmon and pack on the kilos in preparation for the lengthy winter hibernation. Bears are photographed firstly of the season and once more on the finish, and folks vote on their favourite fats bear transformation.
This yr, 32 Chunk had the votes on his facet. The mammoth male bear survived a damaged jaw, which he nursed all through the season, because the wild bears at Katmai don’t obtain veterinary care. Regardless of this, 32 Chunk discovered his internal Payton Manning, Tiger Woods, and Adrian Peterson, got here again from his debilitating damage, and ended up being one of many chonkiest boys on the lot when it got here time for voting.
32 Chunk (left) and the runner-up Bear 856 (proper)
Credit score: Discover.org and Katmai Nationwide Park
The vote, which passed off between Sept. 23-30, was a bracket-style competitors between eight bears. Included within the bracket was 128 Grazer, a feminine bear who was on a two-year win streak. Very like the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, she was unable to lock within the three-peat and was knocked out within the semi-final spherical towards 856, whose personal transformation this yr was merely sensational. 128 Grazer’s baby, 128 Jr, additionally made it out of the primary spherical earlier than shedding within the quarterfinal.
Mashable Development Report
Chunk’s win marks his first, permitting him to affix the pantheon of Fats Bear Week winners. He has a protracted method to go to meet up with corridor of fame expertise like 480 Otis, who’s gained the competitors 4 instances within the final decade, and 409 Breadnose, 747, and 128 Grazer, who’ve two wins every. In actual fact, 32 Chunk joins 435 Holly as the one two bears to win the title solely as soon as.
This yr’s ultimate bracket.
Credit score: Discover.org and Katmai Nationwide Park
It was additionally essentially the most profitable Fats Bear Week but, as voters poured in to point out their assist for 32 Chunk and the opposite bears. Per Discover.org, this yr’s occasion drew 1.7 million whole votes over the course of seven days, beating out the prior document of 1.3 million, which was set in 2023.
The bears all nonetheless have work to do. Typically talking, brown bears proceed to hunt for meals and get fatter till their meals sources turn into naturally scarce because of the altering of the seasons. Most bears go into hibernation someday between October and December. Since Alaska will get colder sooner, bears at Katmai are inclined to land on the October and November facet of that timeline. For 32 Chunk, he has no earthly concept that he’s heading into hibernation as a champion. His followers are hoping that come subsequent spring, the king will awaken, lose as much as 33 % of his physique mass, and begin competing for subsequent yr’s belt.
Godspeed, 32 Chunk.
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