Thursday/ the fattest of them all

It’s Fat Bear week in Katmai National Park in Alaska, and the winner has been announced: Bear 747, nicknamed ‘Jumbo Jet’. Rangers post pictures of the bears online (just a handful of the more than 2,000 in the park), and fans get to cast a vote for Fattest Bear.

These last few weeks bears could gorge themselves one last time before winter sets in, on the salmon swimming upstream to spawn in the Brooks River, in Katmai National Park. Bears can lose up to 40% of their weight while hibernating through winter.

Here’s Bear 747 aka ‘Jumbo Jet’, a 16 yr old male, photographed in June. Already looking good, but there was still a lot of summer left in June. [Photo: U.S. National Park Service]
And this picture is from September. Bear 747 is said to be a very efficient salmon catcher. (They can eat up to 30 salmon in a single day). 747’s voluminous visage is estimated to tip the scales at some 1,400 lbs (640 kg).  [Photo: U.S. National Park Service]

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