Backpack, the Heftiest Bear in Katmai, Is Headed Into Hibernation

Backpack has won Fat Bear Week after a week of competition, emerging as champion and the heftiest bear in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve, according to PBS NewsHour. One supporter's assessment, reported by the BBC, is that the brown bear has both the chonk and the badonk. The title lands shortly before Backpack enters hibernation, which can last up to six months. There's something appealing about a contest whose criterion is simply mass: most competitions reward what an animal does, and this one rewards what it has managed to put away.