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"The reality is that unless all bears are lined up (…), we will not have exactly the same pictures," said Andrew LaValle, a national park ranger who manages the contest. He joked that he would try, "but the bears did not answer my phone calls."
A brown bear from Alaska called 409 Beadnose had his hands full with two new cubs in the summer of 2016. They stayed by her side when she came out of hibernation. last year and went fishing for sockeye salmon in Katmai National Park and Reserve. In other words, Beadnose shared the spoils.
Not this year. In the jargon of wildlife biologists, she "emancipated" these cubs and this spring, she came out of a long winter that has sleepy a nest sterile. After a summer filling her mouth with salmon to her and to herself, Beadnose has the fat to show it.
This remarkable expansion attracted 409 Beadnose – a name that combines its official number attributed to the park and a nickname inspired by its snout – at the finale of Katmai's fourth annual contest, Fat Bear Week. The battle is played on Facebook, where pairs of bear character photos, all used to the Brooks River buffet, are placed side by side and the winner of each round is the one who gets the most likes up to # 39 at 19 hours. (EDT) Tuesday, October 9th.
This is not entirely accurate, as photographs, mostly taken by park staff, are not all taken from the same angle. Beadnose, for example, sits in her late-summer portrait in an accented position that some observers have compared to a Hershey kiss, while other bears are shown standing. The last pictures of some bears are taken a few weeks after the others, which gives them more time to stuff themselves.
"The reality is that unless all bears are lined up on the same day in a queue of files, we will not have exactly the same photos," said Andrew LaValle, a ranger to Katmai, who manages the contest. . He joked that he would try, "but the bears did not answer my phone calls."
They were probably too busy on the small Brooks River, an upstream bottleneck for hundreds of thousands of the 62 million salmon that went through Bristol Bay in Alaska this year, LaValle said. There, the bears easily catch the fish, then slaughter it quickly for the fatest parts – the skin, the fat and the brain – before casually throwing the flesh for which we humans could pay more than $ 30 per pound .
LaValle compares this surgical approach of not refueling in a restaurant: fat is good and there are many other sources.
"They can afford to do it," he said. "The bears in Yellowstone and Denali [National Parks] would be green with envy. "
About 2,000 brown bears live in Katmai, where they also eat berries, vegetation and other animals, but the Brooks River bears are the stars. They practice their craft next to an observation deck and on a webcam hosted by explore.org, where their delicious belly flops, their spectacular rescuers and their occasional salmon flights are broadcast live. Forty-nine identifiable adults fished the river last summer and 18 small ones were seen there this year, LaValle said, all sharing a surprisingly peaceful cafeteria because it is replete with lonely creatures by nature.
"Like humans, they are willing to tolerate many things to feed themselves," LaValle said.
Regulars have feverish online follow-ups, where fans recount their movements and stories. One of the favorites is 480 Otis, a horse with a dislocated right ear who is fishing quietly in a spot by the river. Followers call his "office". Regarded as the oldest of the crew, he is about two years old and is also a winner of Fat Bear Week. But he lost to Beadnose in his first match last week.
Beadnose also criticized 854 Divot, a woman whose nickname comes from her habit of digging holes near the river and who is known to have stolen fish from fishing lines. Even an inspiring story – in 2014, park officials took away a wire wolf trap hanging on his neck – could not tip the scales in his favor.
Beadnose's opponent in Tuesday's final is a horse known only by his number: 747. He was randomly assigned, insisted LaValle, who described the bear on Facebook as a "jumbo jelly" ". The accompanying photo shows 747 day of August, with only a few inches of free space between his abdomen hanging out and the water.
"He was compared to Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloon," LaValle said. "It looks like a hippo more than a bear, sometimes."
The set is not just a social media exercise for LaValle, which seems to be a dictionary of synonyms for "fat". ("Cellulite at the source of salmon replaces?", He asks on Facebook.) What titan of the tundra is the absolute unity? ")
Nor is it ridiculous, he says, but rather a tribute to bears who are "gifted for what they do." That is: stuffing sashimi all summer to prepare for several months of sleep without eating, during which they lose a third of their body weight. The summer can earn between 200 and 300 pounds, and maybe about 1,000 pounds.
This is a beach body, brown bear style. It's a yo-yo diet for the sake of one species.
"Time is running out and they have to save money," LaValle said. "It's the bear festival that succeeded."
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