Fat Bear Week is returning this Tuesday at Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve to answer one of the most important questions for the beast enthusiasts: Which bear is the fattest? For the 2026 edition, 16 brown bears are competing for the crown. The competition isn't about making fun of the overweight bears but to appreciate their survivability skills, as for Katmai's brown bears, getting fat is a matter of survival.
They spend the summer eating as much as they can, much of it salmon from the Brooks River, before heading into their dens for winter. Bears can lose around a third of their body weight during hibernation. The fatter they are going in, the better. This year's field is bigger than last year's and includes mothers with cubs, single females, younger bears, and some seriously enormous adult males.
And there is a familiar face defending the title. Bear 32, better known as Chunk, is back after winning Fat Bear Week in 2025. Chunk's victory last year came despite him starting the salmon season with a broken jaw. He still managed to catch enough fish to become one of the biggest bears on the river and eventually collected nearly 100,000 votes in the final.
He may have an even tougher fight this year. Bear 164, or Bucky Dent, has emerged as one of the names to watch. He is still relatively young but has become increasingly dominant at Brooks River and is already an exceptionally large bear. Of course, being physically enormous doesn't automatically get you the crown, as online voters consider both size and survival struggles.