A bear has been crowned Alaska’s Fattest in a contest that wasn’t even close!
Alaska’s ‘Fat Bear Week’ officially ended Tuesday night with Katmai National Park & Reserve announcing the winner: Number 435, otherwise known as ‘Holly’.
The “Queen of Corpulence” took the crown after 12-hours of voting that gave Holly 17,500 votes, while her competitor, Lefty, had only about 3,600. Like we said, the contest wasn’t even close!
“She is fat. She is fabulous. She is 435 Holly. And you voted her the 2019 Fat Bear Week Champion. All hail Holly whose healthy heft will help her hibernate until the spring,” the park announced on its official Facebook account, along with a photo of the fat brown bear bracket showing off the losers.
She is fat. She is fabulous. She is 435 Holly. And you voted her the 2019 Fat Bear Week Champion. All hail Holly whose healthy heft will help her hibernate until the spring. Long live the Queen of Corpulence!
Posted by Katmai National Park & Preserve on Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Holly definitely earned her place, too, according to Katmai Conservancy Media Ranger Naomi Boak.
“It was very hard to get a good picture [of Holly] out of the water,” she says, “because she was a submarine for the entire month. She did not stop fishing, except to dig a belly hole big enough for her to sleep in,” Boak said to NPR.
The annual contest has been run by the park for the past five years, both drawing attention to the Brooks river’s concentration of sockeye salmon – the largest in the world – and educating those about how bears prepare for hibernation.
This year, 187,000 people voted throughout the week, which is reportedly three times the amount who voted last year.