Since 2014, Alaska’s Katmai National Park has held an annual, bracket-style competition where online visitors cast votes to determine which brown bear they believe has gained the most weight ahead of hibernation season. Known as “Fat Bear Week,” the humorous tournament has helped raise awareness of conservation efforts to protect both the bears and their natural habitat.
Despite all the fun and games, some of the results from this year’s contest, however, smelled a little fishy. In a semi-final faceoff between Bear 435 (“Holly”) and Bear 747 that initially saw the former emerge victorious, park authorities soon discovered that the vote totals had been tampered with to give Holly an extra 7,000 votes. The removal of the fraudulent votes was enough to overturn the results of the election, which allowed 747 to advance to the finals and be crowned the competition’s 2022 champion.
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