ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU/Gray News) – The champion of Fat Bear Week 2024 was crowned Tuesday in an online reveal.
Grazer, a mother on her third litter, defeated her close opponent Chunk by over 40,000 votes, on the final day of the week-long tournament in which people cast their votes online for their choice of burliest bruin.
Over 100,000 people voted on the final day.
The two bears had a connection before their showdown.
In July, Chunk didn’t take kindly to Grazer’s cubs coming into his fishing hole. Confronted with falling down a waterfall, one of the cubs was attacked and killed by Chunk.
“There’s a little bit of actual adversity between these two bears, not just in our fun, kind of made-up Fat Bear Week,” Sarah Bruce with Katmai National Park and Preserve said. “These bears, they’ve interacted with each other on the river multiple times in the past, and so I think a lot of people resonate with those stories and wanted to see them both in the finals at Fat Bear Week.”
Since Wednesday, bear fans voted daily on a pair of head-to-head matches between the furry creatures.
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