The brown bear identified as Bear 32 at Alaska's Katmai National Park has been in the news a lot the last few years, and not for winning the park's annual Fat Bear Week competition. As with all high-level competitors, this is not usually a good thing. When the bear, nicknamed Chunk, lost two finals in a row, he gained a reputation as a loser. When Chunk mauled and killed the cub of Grazer, last year's winner, he gained a reputation as a sore loser. When Chunk dragged away the carcass of another dead bear in order to eat it, he gained a reputation as just kind of a bad dude. Chunk is trouble.
Chunk is a fat bear; no one denies this. But he reported for competition this spring in a new and unlikely role: that of underdog. Chunk showed up in June with a huge scar across his muzzle, and a broken and dislocated jaw, almost certainly received in battle with another male during a mating-season fight. It's unclear which bear would dare tussle with the 1,200-pound Chunk, one of Katmai's largest bears, but for once in his life, Chunk got his shit rocked.
This newfound vulnerability gave Chunk the sympathy he needed to appeal to voters, and, in his third straight finals appearance, Chunk was finally elected the fattest bear of Fat Bear Week. No longer is he the Buffalo Bills of bears. Chunk's fans are ecstatic.
"For Chunk faithfuls like me, it's just really special to see the bear that you've like ... I mean, I love this bear,” superfan Geoff Hartley told Alaska Public Media. "I guess this is what you feel like when your team wins the Super Bowl."
A championship is a remarkable accomplishment for a bear that was no guarantee to survive the year. Chunk's busted jaw is permanently askew, and rangers weren't sure he'd be able to catch and eat enough salmon to live, let alone to add the 50,000 calories per day required to turn Normal Bears into Fat Bears with enough fat reserves to make it through the winter. Additionally, Chunk would also have to figure out how to defend his patch of river from other hungry bears. It proved to be light work for the big man:
“Chunk certainly was resilient in his efforts to get fat this year," said Mike Fitz, a former park ranger and resident naturalist at Explore.org, which hosts Fat Bear Week.
Chunk may have won his first title, but haters will point out that he didn't have to prove himself against the queen, Grazer, winner of the two previous competitions. Grazer, who lost her cub in a Chunk attack last summer, was eliminated in the semifinals by Bear 856, an old dude who switched up his territorial strategy this year. No longer able to win fights with younger bears in their primes for the best fishing spots, 856 instead pivoted to a more patient approach. It paid off. Look how fucking fat he got.
But 856 was no match for Chunk and his backstory. Receiving 60 percent of the more than 160,000 votes cast, the crown and immortality went to 32 Chunk, first of his name. May his salmon leap high and his ass grow large.
