The looming government shutdown threatens to usher in a crowd-pleasing Alaska tradition: Fat Bear Week.
Alaska’s most-watched popularity contest, Fat Bear Week involves residents choosing their favorite fat brown bear that has stocked up for the winter by eating salmon at Katmai National Park & Preserve.
Bear viewers online vote in tournament-style brackets for who they want to advance to the next round until a champion is crowned in a week-long competition.
More than 1 million votes were cast last year.
The problem is, national park employees count and release those votes — and the shutdown won’t allow them to do that because it would trigger a ban on the park’s official social media accounts for as long as the government shuts down.
“In the event of a deviation, we would have to postpone Fat Bear Week,” Cynthia Hernandez, a park spokeswoman, said in an email to The Associated Press.
If Congress doesn’t reach an agreement to fund the federal government, operations will shut down Sunday.
This year’s Fat Bear Week contest will begin on Wednesday.
Alaska’s most-watched popularity contest, Fat Bear Week involves residents choosing their favorite fat brown bear that has stocked up for the winter by eating salmon at Katmai National Park & Preserve.US Today/YouTube This year’s Fat Bear Week contest begins Wednesday. US Today/YouTube
The National Park Service estimates that 2,200 brown bears inhabit the park, outnumbering the people living on the peninsula.
They have six to eight months to eat a year’s worth of food and ensure their survival through the winter, according to the service.
Katmai brown bears are famous for standing at Brooks Falls, catching sockeye salmon in their mouths to fatten up for the winter.
And it’s a big draw for parks on the Alaska Peninsula, an arm of land that stretches from the southwest corner of Alaska toward the Aleutian Islands about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage.
Katmai’s war bears are famous for standing at Brooks Falls, catching sockeye salmon in their mouths to fatten up for the winter.APWatch bears online vote in tournament-style brackets for who they want to advance to the next round until a champion is crowned in a week-long contest.US Today/YouTube
The spectacle drew so many visitors that three viewing points were erected near the falls, along with a bridge and boardwalk over the Brooks River to allow visitors to avoid the bears.
Several cameras operated by explore.org provide live streams of bears in Katmai.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
