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1440 Daily Digest

Mama Bear Retains Crown



A mother bear known as 128 "Grazer" won this year's Fat Bear Week competition, her second

consecutive win. The annual popularity contest, launched in 2014, promotes conservation efforts at Alaska's Katmai National Park, home to an estimated 2,200 brown bears. 


Over the course of a week, public participants rank before-and-after photos of roughly a dozen bears working to beef up for winter in a bracket-style competition (see photos). This year, reigning champion Grazer's fat-packing evolution was considered especially noteworthy given her calorie-draining care for a young cub, and the recent death of another offspring.


In late summer, bears enter a state known as hyperphagia, in which the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin is turned off, enabling them to eat dozens of salmon daily. The bears consume the fattiest parts of the fish, gaining as much as 4 pounds per day before retreating to a den for winter. Learn more here.

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