As I write it’s half approach by means of Fats Bear Week, an annual occasion to search out the fattest bear in Katmai, Alaska.
Began in 2014, Fats Bear Week is a web based contest the place as much as 640,000 folks solid their votes final yr to guess the heaviest bear on the Brooks River in Katmai.
You’ll be able to leap onto the dwell cams and see them any time from June by means of to September on the hunt for salmon – which is plentiful. The bears within the working this yr every have their very own on-line profiles and a photograph taken in July and once more in September, so that you can solid your vote.
Voting is open for just some hours every day and the winner might be introduced on Fats Bear Tuesday – October fifth.
Bears go into hibernation for about three months over winter. They don’t eat or drink something in that point and may lose as much as one-third of their physique weight as they deplete their fats reserves. Clearly the fattest bear going into hibernation comes out higher within the spring.
The massive males have to dominate to outlive, the females have to fatten as much as elevate cubs and the cubs want sufficient fats simply to outlive and make their approach on the earth.
If you will vote, don’t be confused by their names: 747, 508 – these are their tag numbers not their weights. (Possibly it was simply me!)
I at all times say to individuals who ask about the place to take a cruise to, should you’ve solely received one cruise in you, cruise to Alaska. And the principle cause, other than the exceptional glaciers and the whales breaching throughout the ship and crashing again down into the ocean, was an tour I took on a float airplane to a river working with salmon.
We wandered over, cameras on the prepared, and out of the forest on the alternative financial institution wandered bears searching for lunch. They lolled into the river and watched the rapids keenly.
You could possibly learn the focus as their faces went forwards and backwards watching the working river, ready for an unsuspecting salmon swimming upstream.
Then with a swipe of their paw, they grabbed the fish and even caught it of their mouths when it jumped up the falls.
It was essentially the most exceptional wildlife expertise I’ve ever had. Proper up there with strolling previous giraffes in Zambia!
Bald eagles have been additionally hanging round hoping for a tasty morsel that the bear may let go down the river.
Should you love bears, leap onto the webcams by Discover.org who’ve a number of dwell animal cams dotted round Africa and whereas away some hours!
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