This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

And today we're going to hear from Leon Law in Alaska.

Leon is a ranger at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park and Preserve,

and she's here to share a story about Fat Bear Week,

the March Madness-style bracket where bears compete to be the

fat bear champion.

There's not many places that you can work and say, sorry, I'm late, there was a bear in my way,

and that be a completely valid excuse.

But that does happen at Brooks Camp to Rangers as well as visitors.

Catmine National Park and Preserve is comprised of just over 4 million acres or so.

It's located in southwest Alaska, and one of the things that we are perhaps best known for

is our high concentration of brown bears.

Bears are not true hibernators.

They actually go through a state called torpor. But here in Catmai, bears enter the den anywhere from late October to early December, and they

exit in April or May.

But once they enter the den, they don't eat or drink anything, but rely solely off their

fat reserves.

So essentially, they need to eat an entire year's worth of food

in six months or less. During this time in the den, they will lose perhaps about a third of their

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