KATMAI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE – Chunk is the King of the Fat Bears!
The massive brown bear earned the title during this year’s Fat Bear Week competition by eating an ungodly amount of salmon at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park and Preserve. Even more impressively, he packed on all those pounds despite having a broken jaw.
“Chunk is a large adult male with narrowly-set eyes, dark brown fur, and a prominent brow ridge. He has a distinctive scar across his muzzle and a broken, yet healing jaw,” said Explore.org. “The timing of the injury during the brown bear mating season and the nature of it strongly suggest that Chunk was injured in a fight with another bear.”
Chunk beat Bear 856 for the crown, which is an impressive feat. Bear 856 was the dominant male at Brooks Falls for a 12 year run dating back to 2011. But Chunk is a force at the falls himself. He’s one of the biggest and strongest bears in Katmai and pretty much decides where he wants to set up to catch fish. The other bears yield to him.
Fat Bear Week is an online voting competition that pits the biggest bears at the Alaska park against one another as they fatten up for the oncoming winter. The annual event is hosted by Explore.org and the National Park Service and has become hugely popular (not as huge as the bears, but still, huge). It also teaches people about the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems for the animals we love.
You can keep watching the bears at Brooks Falls by clicking here!
NATIONAL PARK NEWS
