Each year in the fall, Katmai National Park and Preserve holds their infamous Fat Bear Week. This elimination-style competition allows for members of the public to engage with their wild counterparts, the brown bear. Located in King Salmon, Alaska, Katmai is known for their popular tourist destination of Brooks Camp. Here, people can watch brown bears in their natural habitat as they feast on the salmon who come to run in these falls. Fall is a busy time of year for the salmon and the bears.
From late July through September sockeye salmon are returning to their natal streams to spawn. During this time, many large, hungry brown bears congregate and wait. It is here that they will receive most of their crucial fall calories before denning up in the coming winter. During this time, bears can consume over 20,000 calories per day, and consuming just one of these migrating salmon provides approximately 4,000 calories. With a bracket of different bear match-ups and over 50,000 people voting, Otis the brown bear has won the title in this year’s competition.
Across the country in the state of Tennessee, Appalachian Bear Rescue (ABR) decided to hold their very own “mini-version” of this fun competition called the Chubby Cubby Chonk Down. ABR hosts this competition to celebrate all the progress their black bear cubs have made since being housed at their rehabilitation facility.
Established in 1996, Appalachian Bear Rescue takes in orphaned or injured bear cubs and yearlings to be rehabilitated and then released back into the wild. While these black bear cubs would certainly not match up to the great grizzlies of Katmai, they too put on a large amount of weight this time of year. Estimated to be released back into the wild this month, the bear cubs must have plentiful fat reserves to survive their first winter alone.
Currently, Appalachian Bear Rescue houses eight bear cubs, all of which were born earlier this year. Like the National Park Service’s Fat Bear Week, ABR provided a bracket and public voting polls on their Facebook and Instagram pages. While the bears in Katmai, and at ABR, cannot be weighed to determine a true winner, the competition brings fun and awareness regardless.
Unlike Katmai bears, bears in Tennessee get most of their fall calories from hard mast. Hard mast includes hard seeds and nuts. Things like hickory nuts, walnuts, acorns, chestnuts, and beech nuts provide a high-calorie content for the ever-growing bears.
All cubs at the bear rescue will be released back into the wild and given a second chance at life. In order to ensure they stay wild while at ABR’s facility, curators provide for the cubs in a completely hands-off way. Like many other places in the world, human-bear conflicts are a leading cause of death for bears in the Smokies. To learn more about how to live responsibly with wild black bears, please visit BearWise.
Appalachian Bear Rescue’s second annual Chubby Cubby Chonk Down ended on October 13th, 2021. A bear cub named “Lemon Drop” was crowned this year’s winner. Though she is nowhere near Katmai’s winner, Otis’s weight, she is still a very round and healthy young cub. May she, like Otis, live a long and healthy life out in the wild.
