2026 Fat Bear Week Winner Unseats Defending Champion With Wildly Impressive Transformation

The start of autumn coincides with the beginning of a competition that has become a beloved annual tradition: the showdown known as Fat Bear Week. This year, millions of votes were cast to determine which grizzly reigns supreme, and last year’s champion was unseated by an Absolute Unit who packed on an impressive amount of weight to take the title.

Katmai National Park and Reserve in Alaska is home to more than 2,000 brown bears, and each year, they become unwitting contestants vying to become the champion of Fat Bear Week, the competition that’s been held every year since 2014.

Fat Bear Week is the brainchild of Mike Fitz, who worked as a ranger at the park in question and was inspired to highlight the dramatic transformations its bears undergo as a result of hyperphagia, the period when they pack on as many pounds as possible during hibernation.

The grizzlies at Katmai primarily do so by chowing down on salmon (the most popular hunting spot is Brooks Falls), and in 2014, a bear known as Otis was crowned the first-ever Chunky King as the result of a one-day vote that was held on Facebook.

It was expanded to a week-long competition the following year and has since evolved into a bit of a spectacle that’s been marred by voter fraud and bear-on-bear murder.

Thankfully, the 2026 edition (which marked the 13th iteration) was a clean fight where the eventual winner eked out a well-deserved victory after beefing up in a major way.

 Bear 89. a.k.a. Backpack, was named the winner of the 2026 Fat Bear Week Competition

Last year, back-to-back Fat Bear Week champion Grazer had the chance to pull off the three-peat, but he was ultimately unseated by Chunk, the underdog who managed to overcome a broken jaw to pull off the upset.

Chunk had the chance to defend his crown after earning one of the 16 spots in the 2026 Fat Bear Week bracket, but his hopes of a repeat were dashed after he was knocked out in the first round by Bucky, who looked unrecognizable after bulking up between June and the start of September.

Bucky’s win marked the start of a run to the semis, but he was also knocked out of contention after meeting Bear 89, dubbed Backpack, who ended up meeting an unnamed Bear 910 in the finals.

When everything was said and done, Backpack secured his first Fat Bear Week title, as he got 103,344 votes to Bear 910’s 98,253 to clinch the victory with 51.2% of the tally.

Hear ye, hear ye! We have a Fat Bear Week winner!
This year’s Lord of Lard, Earl of Girth and Commander in Beef is… Bear 89 also known as Backpack! pic.twitter.com/Gfyolvv0oC

— U.S. Department of the Interior (@Interior) September 30, 2026

Well deserved.