![Chunk Is Out. Fat Bear Week Has a New Favourite.](https://cdn.slatesource.com/f/9/c/f9c2be40-f477-486f-bf1d-5852d2beda58.webp) # Chunk Is Out. Fat Bear Week Has a New Favourite. - [Made in Slatesource](https://slatesource.com/@steph/chunk-is-out-fat-bear-week-has-a-new-favourite) - By [Steph](https://slatesource.com/@steph) - Created on Sep 28, 2026 ## Chunk is out. 96,350 votes could not save him. Bear 32, nickname Chunk, arrived at Katmai National Park's Brooks River in June weighing around 1,200 pounds and carrying the title of 2025 Fat Bear Week champion. He had earned that crown after two runner-up finishes and despite a broken jaw sustained during a spring mating fight. Rangers were not sure he could compete this year. He could. He showed up to defend, and in round one of the 2026 bracket, Bear 164 "Bucky Dent" knocked him out. There will be no back-to-back champion. The semifinals are voting today, September 28. The new Fat Bear Week champion gets crowned on September 29. [Fat Bear Week 2026 -- National Park Service, Katmai National Park (official)](https://www.nps.gov/katm/learn/news/fat-bear-week-2026.htm?utm_source=slatesource) ## What Fat Bear Week actually is Every autumn, the brown bears of Katmai, in southern Alaska, spend roughly six weeks gorging on sockeye salmon running up the Brooks River. A single large male can eat 20,000 calories a day and gain 400 pounds before entering a den. They enter as lean post-winter animals and emerge as something extraordinary in scale. Fat Bear Week, which began in 2014 as a single-day Facebook vote, asks the public to choose the most impressively transformed bear in a bracket-style tournament. Last year, 1.7 million votes were cast from more than 100 countries. In 2026, the first-round vote crashed the Explore.org servers on Day 1, and organisers extended voting by 24 hours to let everyone in. ![](https://cdn.slatesource.com/f/9/c/f9c2be40-f477-486f-bf1d-5852d2beda58.webp) ## Credit: CC0 / Rawpixel. Brown bear cubs at Katmai, Alaska. The park's Brooks Camp is seeing more cubs than at any point in recent memory this season. A new generation is eating its first salmon, learning the plunge-pool techniques of its elders, and beginning the caloric accumulation that will sustain it through six months of hibernation. ## The favourite: Bear 164, Bucky Dent At nine years old, Bucky Dent is not yet at peak size for a male brown bear, which comes between 12 and 20. He discovered, apparently alone, that he could catch salmon by leaping through the air and falling from above: a technique no other bear at Brooks River has attempted. He dethroned the reigning champion in round one, then beat veteran Bear 151 in round two. Park rangers expect him to be competing at the top of this bracket for another decade. ## The other three semifinalists His semifinal opponent is Bear 89, Backpack, the 10.5-year-old son of 2019 champion Bear 435, Holly. He earned the nickname by riding on his mother's back as a cub crossing deep water. He won round two with more than 95 percent of the vote. In the other semifinal, Bear 132 and her cubs face Bear 910, who beat her own sister, Bear 909, to reach this stage. > A new generation of fat bears is taking shape, and they are off to a strong start. We are excited to watch them grow and learn as they prepare for winter in Katmai's incredible ecosystem. ## 12 years, five champions, one four-time winner Otis, Bear 480, defined the early era: four titles across 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2021. His Wikipedia page describes him as a "slack-jawed" fisher with a notched ear, amiable enough to cede prime spots to younger bears and still come back heavier every year. Beadnose won in 2015 and 2018. Holly won 2019. 747 took 2020 and 2022. Grazer, Bear 128, became the first female bear to win back-to-back titles, claiming 2023 and 2024. Then Chunk interrupted the streak. None of those bears is in the 2026 semifinal. The bracket this year belongs to a younger cohort, and Bucky Dent in particular is a bear the park rangers expect to see competing for many more seasons. 2014 champion 480 Otis 2015 champion 409 Beadnose 2016 champion 480 Otis 2017 champion 480 Otis 2018 champion 409 Beadnose 2019 champion 435 Holly 2020 champion 747 2021 champion 480 Otis (4th title) 2022 champion 747 2023 champion 128 Grazer 2024 champion 128 Grazer (2nd title) 2025 champion 32 Chunk ## The conservation argument underneath the joy The NPS and its partner Explore.org use Fat Bear Week deliberately. Katmai protects roughly 9,000 square miles and 2,200 brown bears, the densest population on Earth. The park charges no entry fee and has no road access from the continental highway network. Most people will never visit. Fat Bear Week delivers a bear-cam audience of millions into a landscape they would otherwise never see, funding a conservation programme and raising awareness of the salmon run the bears depend on. When the Explore.org servers crashed on Day 1 this year, it was not a technical failure. It was 1.7 million people simultaneously trying to vote for a bear. [Fat Bear Week voting -- Explore.org (semifinals open today, champion crowned September 29)](https://explore.org/fat-bear-week?utm_source=slatesource)