Backpack edges past Dancing Queen to win the Fat Bear Week title

A chunky ursine called Backpack has out gobbled a challenge from an outsized female nicknamed the Dancing Queen to waltz – or rather waddle – off with the Fat Bear Week title at Alaska’s Katmai national park.

Backpack, a 20-year-old quiet giant known for sitting in solitude for long periods on his rock on the Brooks river, won by barely 5,000 votes in the public tournament celebrating the brown bears’ ability to eat as many fish, Alaska rangers announced.

More than 2.3m online votes were cast this year overall, and more than 200,000 votes in the final round alone. The contest has become a popular annual tradition bringing attention to the park’s population of almost 2,000 bears as they gorge on wild salmon to fatten up ahead of their winter hibernation.

Backpack’s triumph comes seven years after his mother, Holly, more familiar to fans as the Queen of Corpulence, landed the crown in a landslide in the fifth year of the competition.

Holly was on course to win again in 2022 until it was discovered that virtual ballot boxes, rather like the bears themselves, had been (dishonestly) stuffed.

Despite that vote-rigging scandal, public participation has grown every year in the tournament that pits 16 of the park’s heftiest bruins against each other in a head-to-head knockout bracket.

After Backpack’s win was confirmed on Tuesday, the US department of the interior posted on X its congratulations to the newly anointed “lord of lard, earl of girth”.

According to Sarah Bruce, a Katmai park ranger, Backpack, whose formal name is Bear 89 and weighs an estimated 1,200lbs (544kg), benefited from a large loyal fanbase to emerge as the champion.

“He’s one of the bears that we’ve been able to watch on the live cams since the live cams were put in in 2012,” Bruce told Alaska Public Media.

“He’s a familiar bear. People have watched him his whole life.”

She said Backpack is commonly found fishing for salmon and contemplating life on his favorite rock in the river. He has also overcome challenges, she said, including a serious leg injury in 2007.

The runner-up, Bear 910, has no formal name like Backpack, but is known to fans as Dancing Queen because of the way she moves her head while fishing. Her mother is also a previous winner.

Bruce said the ultimate proof of success was the amount of weight the competitors had been able to pack on over the summer months, as shown in their before and after photographs.

“They have already won in the fact that they are set to survive another winter hibernation,” she said. “They win all of the love.”