\u201cThere are more cubs at Brooks Camp this year than have been seen in a long time,\u201d Mark Sturm, the park superintendent, said in a statement. \u201cA new generation of fat bears is taking shape, and they\u2019re off to a strong start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fat Bear Week, which started in 2014, first began as Fat Bear Tuesday. At the time, the park posted a bracket on Facebook similar to the one now in use, showing side-by-side photographs of the park\u2019s brown bears as they bulked up between June and September.<\/p>\n
Mike Fitz, who was a National Park Service ranger at Katmai at the time, recalls: \u201cThe engagement on those few Facebook posts that we did was super high, like way higher than anything we had tried at the park previously.\u201d<\/p>\n
That gave him the idea to develop a way for more people to participate: hosting a week-long event that would take advantage of the livestream cameras the philanthropic group Explore.org had installed in the park in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that makes the webcam experience really special is that we get to follow the stories of individual bears, so we know them across the season and years,\u201d said Fitz, who is now the resident naturalist at Explore.org. \u201cAnd that helps us to form deeper connections with them and tell their stories about surviving in the wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fat Bear Week is also part of a larger strategy to bring people inside a national park they otherwise might never travel to. Located 260 miles (420km) south-west of Anchorage, Katmai is one of the nation\u2019s most remote national parks.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s in part that remoteness that makes Katmai so special \u2013 it is home to the world\u2019s last great salmon run and approximately 2,200 brown bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year, tens of millions of salmon return to this region,\u201d said Fitz, who adds that rangers have seen hundreds of thousands of salmon moving along Brooks river, where Katmai\u2019s brown bears congregate. \u201cWithout salmon, there would be no Fat Bear Week. They\u2019re amazing creatures in their own right, and they are the keystone of the ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitz credits last year\u2019s large salmon run with this year\u2019s especially large number of brown bear cubs. \u201cIf you are a well-fed brown bear you are more likely to have cubs in the den and you\u2019re also more likely to have a large litter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As a result, Fitz says there will be more families represented in Fat Bear Week this year than ever before. He hopes that helps viewers continue connecting with Katmai\u2019s brown bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see a lot of ourselves in brown bears. We see how hard mother bears work to raise their cubs. We understand their hunger, at least on some level,\u201d he said. \u201cEach bear tells us stories about survival in the wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes those stories can be painful \u2013 like last year, when 32 Chunk broke his jaw, or the year before, when a male bear killed the young cub of reigning fat bear champion 128 Grazer \u2013 but Fitz says it\u2019s important to Katmai and Explore.org \u201cto be transparent about the lives of these bears\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is filled with a lot of joy and fun \u2013 we see the bears playing with one another. But they face real risk. They face real hardship. They\u2019re fierce, large predators,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Like viewers online, Fitz and the rangers at Katmai have bears they have connected with and are eager to follow over the week.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a bear, No 910, who didn\u2019t have cubs this year \u2013 she had cubs in the past, but she was single this year \u2013 she\u2019s just a balloon,\u201d he said. And Bear 164, nicknamed Bucky, is \u201cshowing an increasing dominance of the river over the last several years\u201d, he added. \u201cHe\u2019s not even 10 years old and he\u2019s just a giant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n During a livestream event leading up to Fat Bear Week, Sturm, the park\u2019s superintendent, said he hoped 32 Chunk, who\u2019d been slow to make an appearance at Brooks river, would make a comeback.<\/p>\n \u201cA bear might have a really compelling story from early summer, but if they don\u2019t show up in September, then we can\u2019t compare,\u201d said Fitz, who explained not all bears can make it onto the bracket, even if they\u2019re fan favorites.<\/p>\n At the very least, Fitz said: \u201cI hope it gives people an opportunity to break away from the madness of the world and the rest of the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n For more than a decade Fat Bear Week \u201chas become a phenomenon\u201d, Strum said during a 9 September live stream, which \u201ccertainly helps us deliver our message about the importance of large landscape conservation, brown bear conservation, and just having functional ecosystems that are healthy and viable\u201d.<\/p>\n