The solely factor higher than a bear is a fats bear, and the one factor higher than a fats bear is a fats bear cub. That’s why I’m stoked to announce that proper now, fats bear cubs are at the moment having a second. Welcome to the first-ever Fat Bear Junior competition.

Every autumn, the National Park Service holds Fat Bear Week to permit folks vote for the chunkiest brown bear at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. It’s a strategy to honor the months that bears spend build up their physique fats to organize for hibernation. Fat Bear Week is at all times the very best time of 12 months. And in 2021, it’s even higher due to a little bit spinoff competitors taking place now as a warm-up.

Bear cubs are going head-to-head for an opportunity to be dubbed the fattest child bear of the Brooks River. (“Baby” is relative right here, after all.) The stakes are excessive, as a result of the winner will enter the grownup bracket, which begins subsequent Wednesday. That’s proper—one cub will go up in opposition to the grown bears. Since voting started on Thursday, two bear cubs have already been eradicated, and the polls are solely open till Friday at 9 p.m. ET, so head over, quick!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t introduce you to the charming contestants, who bear—sorry, naked—the names of their mothers, 132 and 128. First, there’s Bear 132’s spring cub, who appeared in a viral video earlier this month and is one in every of two surviving members of a three-cub litter who confirmed as much as the Brooks River in July. He’s an actual charmer who has hung out round folks, as a result of Bear 132 introduced her children close to the guests to Katmai’s Brooks Lodge. He’s obtained an enormous mat of chocolately fur and an opulent, droopy stomach.

Then, there’s 128 yearling. She has a twin sister and thick, blondish fur. She’s a bit precocious: She discovered to catch her personal salmon from the Brooks waterfall in Katmai National Park. The NPS notes, with seems like a little bit of Katmai pleasure, that “No other yearling bear in memory of park staff has successfully and regularly caught fish on the lip of Brooks Falls.”

You can be taught extra about them each on the park’s website and search for them on Explore.org’s live bear cams. There’s no strategy to make a mistaken alternative: The contest is subjective, and officers say you may base your determination on mainly no matter you need. Just ensure that to get your vote in earlier than polls shut!