Fat Bear Week 2025: Lessons and Takeaways for a Successful Fall Semester

The new champion.

Photo Source: Katmai National Park

Every fall, the large omnivore enthusiasts of the world come together on one website for the event of the season: Fat Bear Week. Hosted annually by Explore.org, Fat Bear Week is a bracket-style, voting-based competition to see which brown bear from Katmai National Park in Alaska is truly the most massive.[1] The competition—which has occurred annually for over a decade—asks voters to examine each specimen presented to them and vote on their favorite with a click of a button. For those of us who simply cannot wait until November each year for the opportunity to express our opinions in a democratic forum, Fat Bear Week provides a platform to make our opinions heard in a way that really matters: determining which apex predator is the biggest and therefore the most deserving of our love.

The judging criteria of Fat Bear Week are as varied as they are nuanced. Of course, the first quality that voters are encouraged to examine in each bear is its fatness. Because bears spend their winters in a state of torpor—a method of conserving energy similar to hibernation—packing on extra energy in the form of fat is a bear’s best chance of survival. For these bears, rotundness and likelihood of survival are positively correlated. The Alaskan winters are no joke, which makes efficient face stuffing a crucial skill for the bears of Katmai National Park. While this may not seem like a particularly gruelling challenge to the likes of us, it should be considered that these bears must fight the elements, and often each other, in order to access the most fruitful grazing and fishing spots. Suffice to say, they don’t have access to the Free Food Table.

Fatness isn’t the only factor that matters in this cutthroat gig, though. Bears must also win the hearts and minds of the voter base. Since it would be logistically tricky to take these one-ton Eocene tanks out on the campaign trail, Explore.org conveniently supplies us laypeople with a brief description of each bear and their story.[2] These blurbs contain information on identifying features of the bear as well as any notable events that might have affected the fatness of each specimen. For instance, the champion of the last two Fat Bear Week competitions is 128 Grazer. Last year, she made history by becoming the first mother to take the crown—an impressive feat, given how much of a sow’s energy must go toward feeding and raising her cubs.[3] But this is all ancient history in the eyes of the internet. Which friend-shaped butterball took the metaphorical cake this year?

Those of us with some derivative of the words “law” or “justice” in our names know how it feels to be predestined to pursue our current careers. This year’s Fat Bear Week champion can relate. Weighing in at more than an (estimated) 1,200 pounds, “32 Chunk” (or just “Chunk” to friends and family) made waves and stole the hearts of voters.

Chunk isn’t just a bear. He’s a bear with a backstory. This June, Chunk was spotted sporting a broken jaw, believed to have been sustained after a fight with a rival male. Despite the obvious hurdles that this pre-season injury would present, Chunk rose to the challenge. He avoided further conflicts and reinjury with other males during the late summer and early fall. He even learned how to eat without using his jaw and managed to chow down on enough salmon to become the roundest of all. Think about that the next time your boyfriend says he “totally could’ve gone D1” if it wasn’t for his hyperextended pinky toe. Such excuses are beneath Chunk.

If you find yourself disappointed that you missed out on all of the action this year, have no fear. Fat Bear Week will return next year. Next fall, when all of you democracy junkies are out on the streets craving the incomparable rush of casting a crisp ballot, remember that your voice is important, even on days when the government doesn’t tell you that you can skip work. Because there’s a fat bear out there that needs your vote.

[1] https://explore.org/fat-bear-week.

[2] https://explore.org/meet-the-bears.

[3] https://explore.org/hall-of-champions.

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Staff Editor — Emma Lawson ’28

hzk2ny@virginia.edu