The 2025 Fat Bear Week champion is back and ready to rumble (or at least eat a lot of fish). Bear #32, better known as Chunk, returned to view this week on the explore.org live cameras stationed throughout Katmai National Park in Alaska. With the kickoff of Fat Bear Week 2026 slated for Friday, his timing couldn’t be better.

Chunk reigned supreme in 2025, racking up 96,350 votes—30,000 more than second place finisher, Bear 856. Chunk is a fan favorite for his hefty size (estimated at more than 1,200 pounds) and distinct look. In addition to his narrow-set eyes, dark brown fur, large muzzle scar, and prominent brow ridge, Chunk also has misaligned the jaw. In 2025, he emerged from slumber and made an appearance at Brooks River with a noticeably broken jaw that rangers guessed was a result of a fight with another bear.

“Chunk proved immediately adaptable,” explore.org explained. “He adjusted his behavior to avoid most direct confrontations with other large male bears. He quickly learned to eat salmon without the full use of his mandible. Additionally, his large body size still gave him easy access to many productive fishing spots. He remains one of the largest bears at Brooks River.”

Despite the potential challenges of chomping on salmon with a broken jaw, Chunk persevered. Cameras first spotted him this season all the way back in April. Bears are not seen as frequently during the spring, so the early glimpse of Chunk walking across a patch of ice was exciting. Typically, Katmai bears emerge in June when the salmon run begins at Brooks River.

Chunk wasn’t always a fan favorite though. In 2024, he lost the Fat Bear Week crown for the second year in a row to mama bear Grazer. The two bears had been involved in an incident in which two of Grazer’s 2024 cubs were attacked by Chunk after falling over a waterfall. Grazer put up a fight against Chunk to defend her cubs, but one cub died after the encounter.

Tune in Friday, September 18, for the Fat Bear Week 2026 bracket reveal to see if Chunk will have the chance to defend his title. And you can always tune in to explore.org live cameras to see what our favorite chunky bears are up to.

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When is Fat Bear Week 2026?

This year, Fat Bear Week begins on Tuesday, September 22, and a winner will be crowned on Tuesday, September 29. 

How can I vote?

Votes may be cast from noon to 9 p.m. EDT (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ADT)

from September 22 and 29 at fatbearweek.org.

Photographs comparing the bears from earlier in the summer and later in the summer will be shown, so voters can get an idea of just how much weight the bears put on during their salmon fest. An adult male bear can go from roughly 700 pounds in the early summer to over 1,200 pounds by fall. 

Voters are also encouraged to get familiar with each bear’s life history and the unique challenges they face to survive.

Which bears are competing this year?

The 2026 Fat Bear Week Bracket will be released on Friday, September 18. 

How can I support Katmai’s bears?

Donations can be made to Katmai Conservancy’s Otis Fund. The Otis Fund is named after Bear #480 (Otis), who won four Fat Bear Week titles before his death around 2024.  All donations made between September 22 and October 3 will be matched by explore.org. 

What happened with the bears this summer?

This year’s livestream featured an example of how wild (and upsetting to humans) nature can be. On Tuesday, July 28, cameras captured a young brown bear cub being killed and eaten by an unrelated mother bear (Bear #806).  

On Sunday, August 2, one of Bear #335’s (Jolly) cubs died, after following three unrelated cubs up a tree. The mother of the cubs already in the tree attacked Bear #335’s cub, who did not survive the encounter. The identity of the mother bear who killed the spring cub was not confirmed. 

Following the first cub’s death, naturalist Mike Fitz and park rangers Christine Loberg and Sarah Bruce said this likely the first documented case occurring at Brooks River. While there is no one answer as to why mother bears are killing cubs, some experts suspect bear adoption, food scarcity, and fights for dominance all play a role. 

Additionally, this year also saw the cub with silver-hued fur, a cub who hopefully learned important lesson about porcupine quill safety, the unique fishing stylings of Bear #164 (Bucky Dent), and Bear #284’s (Electra) family who can “walk on water.”

The post Big boy Chunk returns ahead of Fat Bear Week 2026 appeared first on Popular Science.

A brown bear cub learns a lot in its first year of life—how to fish, how to steer clear of trouble. Two curious cubs recently learned a valuable (and wet) lesson about the strength of currents.

At Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, home to Fat Bear Week, Bear #224 took her cubs on a journey near Brooks Falls. Early in summer, Brooks Falls is a hot spot for salmon munching by the park’s resident brown bears. By September, most bears move to the lower Brooks River to eat the dead and dying salmon near the river’s mouth.

As Bear #224 navigated the upper part of the falls with her two spring cubs, the young bears toddled up a rock and each hopped off. The strength of the current pulled the bears over the waterfall, despite their best efforts to paddle upstream. No other bears were present at the falls during the incident and mama bear eventually made her way down to join her cubs and move down river to calmer waters.

Brown bears are strong swimmers, moving up to 5mph in the water, according to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. They use all four legs to paddle and their body fat helps provide buoyancy. They also shake like dogs to remove excess water after a swim.

Fat Bear Week kicks off September 22. Votes may be cast from noon to 9 p.m. EDT (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ADT) from September 22 and 29 at fatbearweek.org.

The post Katmai bear cubs tumble over waterfall appeared first on Popular Science.

In French Polynesia, an adult seahorse floats in ocean waters alongside two juveniles. His head appears bowed, as the young fry look on curiously. The captivating black-and-white image (seen below) by photographer Julien Anton took top honors at the 2026 Ocean Photographer of the Year awards.

“Winning Ocean Photographer of the Year is an immense honour – one I’m proud to share with my family, and with the local residents, naturalists and fishermen of Tahiti and Moorea whose knowledge made this image possible,” Anton said in a statement. “We spent countless hours searching in difficult conditions, with no guarantee of finding a single seahorse. That is what made the moment so extraordinary – when the juveniles turned back towards the adult, it felt like something far beyond what I had dared to hope for. I am not a professional photographer; for me, photography is simply how I share what I see and feel. My hope is that this image can serve as a bridge between science, conservation and a world that deserves to know what is at stake.” 

The 2026 Ocean Photographer of the Year competition celebrates Big Blue’s incredible beauty while also highlighting the urgent need to protect it in a rapidly changing world. The annual contest is co-presented by Oceanographic Magazine and Blancpain.

The post 16 splashy and spectacular images from the 2026 Ocean Photographer of the Year awards appeared first on Popular Science.