It's Fat Bear Week. Yes, that's a thing.
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Travel reporter Natalie Compton ventures to Katmai National Park to meet the chonky stars of Fat Bear Week up close. Today, we dig into this wild tradition and what it teaches us about tourism, conservation and, of course, fat bears.
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It’s impressive that anyone makes it to Katmai. Getting to the motherland of fat bears requires the kind of time and money Taylor Swift fans put into attending the Eras Tour. First there are the flights to Alaska. Then a floatplane or water taxi to the park. And there’s a lottery system to score one of the 16 rooms at the lodge.
Still, Natalie Compton made it — and so did a number of fat bear fanatics. Natalie talks to guest host Lillian Cunningham (host of the podcast “Field Trip”) about the adventure.
To learn more about our National Parks, listen to “Field Trip.” Lillian will lead you on a journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s most awe-inspiring places. You can find all five episodes here, or look for them wherever you listen to podcasts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week marked the beginning of one of our most important national traditions. |
| 0:09.1 | Fat Bear Week Fat Bear Week is March Madness meets Nathan's hot dog eating contest for |
| 0:19.4 | bears. |
| 0:20.8 | Natalie Compton has been reporting on the phenomenon of Fat Bear Week for years. |
| 0:26.8 | It is this online competition where the bears of Cat My National Park are pitted against |
| 0:31.4 | each other. |
| 0:32.4 | They have no idea this is happening. |
| 0:34.6 | Fans online vote on these before and after photos of the bears. |
| 0:38.5 | They emerge from their dens looking emaciated park rangers get photos of that. |
| 0:44.0 | At the end of the season before they go into hibernation, we have these photos of them |
| 0:47.6 | very, very fat and fans get to see who got the fattest. |
| 0:57.3 | And so I mean how big are we talking about with these bears and Cat My? |
| 1:01.1 | These bears are huge. |
| 1:03.9 | These bears can get up to a thousand pounds and regularly do by the time fall hits. |
| 1:09.4 | Female bears can be hundreds of pounds. |
| 1:11.7 | Adult males can top 1200 pounds and do. |
| 1:15.7 | Cat My is one of Alaska's national parks. |
| 1:19.2 | They've set up these webcams that let people watch the bears and vote on which bear they |
| 1:23.7 | think is the fattest. |
| 1:25.7 | And it's become a huge deal for a lot of people online. |
| 1:30.0 | Last year, more than a million people participated in the voting for fat bear week. |
| 1:35.5 | And there, I mean, there are people who take this really seriously, right? |
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