Fat shaming is frowned upon, but when it comes to the bears of Katmai National Park & Preserve, a four million-acre stretch of wilderness in Alaska, we can make an exception.

The park is home to around 2 000 bears, and they spend the summer months trying to get as fat as possible ahead of the winter hibernation.

Basically, the exact opposite of how most of us plump up in winter and then start trying to shed the kilograms round about now.

On the park’s Facebook page, fans choose their favourite bear from each head-to-head battle, as outlined in the image below.

As you can see, it’s reached crunch time:

775 Lefty versus 435 Holly in the final showdown.

Here’s some basic info via NPR, with 775 Lefty showing off his curves:

As the competition began this week, Katmai Conservancy media ranger Naomi Boak had her eye on two of what she calls “favorites.” No. 435. … they assign a number after monitoring the bears for a while … and No. 747. He is “as big as a jumbo jet,” she says.

“He was so big he looked like he was ready to hibernate in July. He’s the size of two bears.”

Rylee Jensen & Jorel Cuomo/Courtesy of NPS Photos

This isn’t fat shaming, Boak says. It is fat glorifying as the biggest bear has done the best job getting ready.

“They lose a third of their body fat over the winter,” Boak says. “So they need all that fat to survive.”

Boak and her fellow media ranger, Brooklyn White, have tried their best to get ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures, showing off how the bears have packed on the pounds.

Here’s 32 Chunk:

That’s a solid animal.

The winner will be crowned later today – again, you can vote here.

If you prefer dogs and cats to bears, and you want to show off your pet (chunky or otherwise), you can enter the Pet Culture Pet of the Year 2019 competition that is currently running.

We promise not to fat shame your pet.

[source:npr]