'Backpack' declared Alaska's Fat Bear Week winner
"Backpack" defeated a bear known only as "910" in the final round of the annual competition.
'Backpack' named winner of Alaska's Fat Bear Week
A brown bear called 89 Backpack has taken the annual Fat Bear Week title, following what the US National Parks Service called a "battle of size, skill, snack acquisition, and strategic loafing".
Backpack's bulk just edged out a bear known only as 910, collecting 103,344 votes to 910's 98,253 in the competition's final round, which is organized by Katmai National Park in Alaska.
The National Parks Service thanked the 16 bears who "involuntarily participated" in the contest, now in its thirteenth year.
Backpack, whom one admirer described as having both the "chonk and the badonk", will soon go into hibernation, which can last as long as six months.
His mother Holly won Fat Bear Week in 2019. Backpack's name comes not from what another supporter called the "light bulb shape" of his body, but from his habit as a cub of climbing onto Holly's back when she crossed the park's salmon-rich Brooks River.
Another fan called him a "big fuzzy boy".
But Backpack also had critics. One person said she believed Bear 910, a female who raised both her biological cub and an adopted niece, was a "larger bear all around. Backpack just has a bigger booty".
"I just feel like 910 really put in the work this year," another 910 supporter wrote on the park's Facebook page, while one voter commented, "She round, she thick my girl 910 got my vote."
The finalists' most recent weights have not yet been disclosed. Adult male brown bears average up to 408kg in mid-summer and often gain the equivalent of 25% of their body weight by autumn. The biggest males can weigh more than 540kg.
Females are smaller but can weigh more than 300kg. Cubs are born at roughly half a kilogram.
"During hibernation, bears do not eat or drink and lose one-third of their body weight. Their winter survival depends on accumulating ample fat reserves before entering the den," organisers wrote.
From June through mid October, the bears feast on food, including salmon caught with their jaws or paws.
Backpack's biography says his "quiet toughness has allowed him to find his niche alongside the biggest bears at Brooks River".
Last year, more than 1.7 million votes were cast from over 100 countries to crown the competition's heavyweight champion.