After a one -week battle on arrival, the winner of the Fat Bear Week this year was crowned. Congratulations to 32 Chunk, a brown bear who weighed more than 1,200 pounds, which won the title 2025.
The annual competition, now in its 11th year, respects the food season of Katmai National Park in Alaska. Viewers connect to watch a live broadcast of brown bear feeding on Brooks Falls, a salmon race in the park, while they are preparing to hibernate. Then, viewers vote on which Bear is the largest and longest factory creature in the world in a sports inspiration.
This year’s competition was stacked, including a first appearance by a offspring of Grazer, the winner of the last two competitions of the Fat Bear Week. Grazer, who was again in the field this year, was eliminated from the 856 race, the bear that would finally be second behind the giant 32 Chunk, known by the fans simply under the name of Chunk.
856 and Chunk sailed in the final after having easily defeated their respective competitors in the semi-finals, having reached 76,665 and 82,913 votes respectively.
In the final, Chunk fled with the title, collecting 96,350 votes against the 63,725 of 856.
Despite his stature, Chunk was something of an outsider at the start of this year’s competition. He arrived at the river with a broken jaw, according to Mike Fitz, a former resident forest and naturalist at Explore.org, the organization of the media that helps to welcome the Fat Bear Week. Bear in the park do not receive medical care, said Fitz in an interview at the start of the competition.
The injury could not only have made Chunk out of the race, but could even have endangered his life, because he had to learn to reaffirm domination and to obtain enough fish to eat without complete use of his mouth. Mr. Fitz said Chunk showed great “adaptability” and took care to avoid confrontations with other male bears.
“Chunk was certainly resilled in his efforts to grow this year,” said Fitz.
To be taken into account for the support, the bears must be present at the river throughout the summer so that the rangers can capture photographs before and after which demonstrate the weight of each animal. Bears can eat more than 50,000 calories per day during their salmon feed frenzy.
The photos helped 856 on his trip through this year’s competition.
“The photos of the beginning of the summer and the end of the summer of 856 seem to have captured his dramatic transformation in the body mass,” wrote Mr. Fitz in an email on the last day of the Fat Bear Week. While Chunk came out in the lead, comparisons side by side from 856 from June to September are quite astounding.
This year’s competition continued to increase the upward trajectory of fat week, the 1.6 million total votes representing the most in the history of the competition, according to competition data.
