Bonus: Ursa Majors

[00:00:02] Begin PodFix Network transmission in 3...2...1... This is BewilderBeasts, an infotainment show dedicated to inspiring curiosity for all ages by investigating the ways animals intersect at humanity. I am not a historian, an ethologist, a researcher, a scientist, a zoologist, a trained audio engineer or an expert in...well, anything.

[00:00:26] Y'all, I'm lucky if I can remember to put my clean laundry in the dryer before it gets funky. And while I make every effort to present things as accurately as I can with a fun flair, I'm going to mess up. And that's okay.

[00:00:38] I hope I've given you a nice place to jump off from on your own adventures into curiosity. Or at the very least, I've given you the key to win your next round of trivia. Hello and welcome to BewilderBeasts.

[00:01:10] I'm your host Melissa McHumigrath for the first time recording from a new podcast studio closet, Harry Potter-style, under the stairs, way outside of Boston, Massachusetts...in Southern Nain. Today on BewilderBeasts Patreon exclusive, the best in bootylicious bear bracketing. Okay, let's go. All right, y'all.

[00:01:44] So this is just going to be a quick intro here up at the top for this Patreon exclusive. I just wanted to say the sound quality might be a little weird. I just hung up some blankets in the closet that will become my podcasting studio.

[00:01:58] It feels a little echoey to me. I do have some things on order, but I did want to get this out for you guys. So while I'm tinkering with the studio so that way I can get it to work and sound better. Be patient.

[00:02:09] I really appreciate all your support. Um, and that's it for the intro. I just wanted to make it short and sweet up top, but thank you again for supporting the show. This one's for you and I hope y'all like bears. All right, here we go.

[00:02:30] If you have to be on a zoom call, but would rather be doing something that combines wildlife, voyeurism, gambling, social media, body positivity, and your Ursa more on the major side, then Fat Bear Week is exactly what you need.

[00:02:43] My friend, that bear week did not start as the full March madness bracket ask event that you might know and love today. It started off as fat bear Tuesday in 2014 when Rangers at Katmai national park were perusing the comments, which I would typically

[00:02:57] advise against, but in this case, it brought us the best in bootylicious bear bracketing. One Ranger, Mike Fitz, notice that one particular comment on the webcam feed that commented on a particular bears heft his or her difference in weights between July and September. Quote, wow.

[00:03:15] Look at the difference from there. The Rangers took it to the internet where it became a one day sensation. Fat bear Tuesday eventually became fat bear Wednesday through Tuesday. In fact, it's Friday now and I'm kind of behind on my personal

[00:03:30] bracket and really need all my other bears to pull me out of my current loss. I'll admit it. This is my very first fat bear week and I fell for the mystique of quality marketing and PR chunk totally let me down, but it's okay. It's okay.

[00:03:47] I have no regrets on picking my bears. Like I pick my wine by the silly name or the label. I'm still here for greaser. One of the lady bears in the running. What's so great about this is that yes, it's a silly name, but what it does

[00:04:02] do is it promotes why these fatty changes happen for bears. They need fat to bulk up, to get swole, to get mega chunk in order to survive the winter. Remember bears hibernate for six months, so they have to get as big as

[00:04:17] they can just like that one uncle you have Thanksgiving who grows four pant sizes needs triple the pie quota for an elephant falls asleep during Cowboys game. Yeah. These bears do exactly that, but with less pie, more salmon and they honestly prefer hockey.

[00:04:34] Instead of a few photos from the webcams, the Rangers get into it too. They need to get the skinniest photos of these bears as early as May when the park opens so they can compare those photos to their late September megabods.

[00:04:49] Katmai national park even has a photo slider that you can slide back to an earlier photo and then slide the little internet slider thingy to watch the bear get bigger. The bear who's voted to have put on the most perceived weight by a photo

[00:05:04] in the season is crowned the champion of fat bear week. In fact, the previous winners were three named bears and one dark horse, I guess you could say had been crowned the champions of fat bear week over the last seven years.

[00:05:20] Otis who won three times, bead nose twice, Holly go girl and 7 47. And it looks like the reigning roundest roehrer has excellent odds of winning again this year. The Rangers say that 7 47 is the biggest bear that they have ever seen. Yo, these are Rangers.

[00:05:40] They have seen lots of bears. If I see one bear in person in the wild, that would for sure be the largest bear I've ever seen. I'm not going to listen to the experts on this one. Last year, 7 47 was about 1400 pounds.

[00:05:57] Ranger Fitz says, quote, I'd be surprised if he's any smaller this year. Yeesh, that's four reindeer, eight and a half kegs of beer, 14 and a half toilets or 300 Chihuahuas. Four brown bears of that weight are the same weight as a single blue whale's tongue.

[00:06:17] According to the Rangers on the ground from a mental floss article, quote, fans who have been watching these bears all year already know which contenders to keep an eye on. Quote, I'm looking forward to seeing whether or not 7 47 can defend his title, Fitz said.

[00:06:30] According to Slate, bear 7 47 has a build that coincidentally resembles the famed Boeing airliner. I also think he could probably seat about 467 people comfortably with a full working crew and of course in flight snacks. Katmai National Park media ranger Naomi Boak has also suggested

[00:06:49] that 7 47 is in a great position heading into the bracket. Quote, I think the current champ is highly competitive. His belly is already touching the ground. How big is 7 47? Y'all even explore.org where you can watch live streams of these bears

[00:07:08] and vote without needing a social media account has nicknamed bear 7 47 bear force one. The current heavyweight champion was so big in August of this year, the video footage showed him having a difficult time getting his girth up a river bank.

[00:07:25] The photographers are Rangers who get the shots of the bears by stealthily tracking them for weeks. Not only that, but these Rangers have to be able to identify the bears from a safe distance. Chunk has a big scar across his nose, so that's easy to ID,

[00:07:40] but that one's brown and hey, that one is also brown. Oh, hi. Another brown bear at 70 yards. These are professional Rangers, not your Instagram stockarati who put themselves dangerously close to wildlife. Would y'all don't do that? Leave wildlife alone and let the Rangers do the photo work.

[00:08:04] Overall, Fat Bear Week is a great example of how conservation efforts can use technology for good and not evil. This is an excellent way to raise awareness of what goes on in Katmai Park. And Katmai is noted for one of the few places on Earth where

[00:08:19] the ecosystem is working as it should. For example, last year they had a record breaking salmon run, which in turn really helped bulk up these bears to beefcake status. The hope is that by showing how nature can work when it's

[00:08:33] working well, people might take more pride of their own natural resources. And noted in the Mental Floss article, the people who work hard to bring these obese beasts to the internet every year, the public can be reminded of what

[00:08:46] exactly is at risk as the environmental news continues to worsen. Quote, the phenomenon we enjoy at Brooks Falls of bears fishing there is completely dependent on a healthy salmon run. And with climate change and other threats to salmon, like

[00:09:01] large scale development and mining, I think the more people that are aware of this healthy, productive ecosystem, the better, said Ranger Fitz. Given that each bear has to eat about 90 pounds of food every single day, which for a bear includes berries, small mammals, vegetation and lots of fish.

[00:09:21] You think apple picking half a peck is tough in October? 90 pounds. That's eight gallons of paint or an average sized seventh grader in berries every single day. The fish they are eating are not small though. Salmon is full of fat and protein and runs about 4500 calories per fish.

[00:09:44] That's more than twice the recommended caloric intake for most humans who are not actively competing in weightlifting trials, marathons, highly active sports, aren't seven feet tall or trying to compete with these bears in getting mega chunk or the first party out with

[00:09:59] these friends after COVID, which will be a competitive sport for many of us who are used to staying home now. Normal isn't normal y'all and lots of people have different caloric needs to stay healthy than what a bell curve would indicate.

[00:10:13] That said, if any of us were to stand by a river bank and eat upwards of 30 of these big mama salmon per day, like the old adage goes, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.

[00:10:24] Teach a man to fish, but a hungry bear looking to eat so many fish he struggles to walk, it's time to discover a new protein source. Which leads me to my dark horse favorite, Holly. She was the 2019 winner, but every sporting event, you need a great backstory, right?

[00:10:44] Y'all saw the Olympics media loves this stuff and Holly has an emotional backstory in spades. Check this out in 2014, the first year that had fat bear Tuesday, Holly came across an orphan bear cub. She already had her own baby, but she took this one

[00:11:01] into and both cubs have grown up and are successful adult bears numbers 503 and 719. The ranger said that the year Holly won the title, it was hard to get a good photograph of her as she never left the water. She was just too busy eating.

[00:11:18] According to an interview with NPR because she was a submarine for the entire month. She didn't stop fishing except for to dig a belly hole big enough to sleep in. And if you can't get enough of fat bear week,

[00:11:31] just like Nick and Nick Jr, PBS and PBS kids, fat bear week has a fat bear junior where you can look at super cute baby bears plumping up for winter. Y'all I cannot. By the time this airs fat bear week should only

[00:11:48] have another day or two left and fat bear junior is already decided. Go Cubs or rather the Cub of Bear 132 who was ridiculously plump. This Cub earned a spot in the big bear event that is currently going right now. So basically like getting into the Boston

[00:12:04] Marathon, you have to qualify in other races. Well, that's what happened to the Cub of Bear 132. This baby chonker ended up in the mega chonk competition. And I'm going to say this, if it's between eating and running, I'm going to totally get in on the eating events.

[00:12:20] But on a more serious note, catmye Cubs only have a 34% chance to survive the winter. Eek. They're at their most vulnerable this first year of life when they are babies. They are small and helpless. They're at risk of not putting on enough

[00:12:37] weight to survive the harsh Alaskan winters or getting sick or being attacked by other bears and even drowning. These are all things that put these wee baby bears at high risk of death in the first year of life, which is why I think it's a

[00:12:49] great idea to get the fat bear brackets going in the Cub class. The only thing that will bring more people to educate themselves about bears is OMG, baby brown bears and they're so floofy. Nature is a cruel mistress, but she also

[00:13:05] gives us fat bottom bears and make our rockin' world go round. So if you want more information, get thee to explore.org. Click on the live streams and set your calendars for spring training in May when the first photographs come out of next year's bear roster.

[00:13:20] And listen to Varmintz follow their social media channels where I found out about this brawny bulging belly Bruin and they have their own brackets every year as well on their Facebook page. So I'm going to say it, go grazer. Don't let me down, mama.

[00:13:42] So thank you for supporting Be Wilderbees. If there are topics that you would be interested in hearing about on the podcast, know of any historical animals who changed the world, animals who help humans or wacky animals in the news, send them in. bewilderbeespod at gmail.com, tweet

[00:13:55] at bewildered pod, bewilderbeespod on Facebook and bewilderbees on Instagram. And for you Patreon members who have access to this, let me know what else you would like to see and hear. I am Melissa McHugh McGrath with Mutt Stuff Media. Resources for today's episode,

[00:14:12] nps.gov, npr.org on Fat Bear Week 2021, smithsonianmag.com, mentalfloss.com on Fat Bear Week history and boingboing.net. Also theweightofthing.com. I love that website. Links are in the description of today's episode. Intro music is Tiptoe Out The Back by Dan Lebowitz and interstitial

[00:14:34] music is by MK2. Since you're already supporting the show, thank you so much for listening and especially to you guys here on the Patreon feed. I really, really appreciate the support. This one's for you. You've been listening to a podcast of the Podfix Network.

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