US: Alaska’s Fat Bear Week contest emerges from voting scandal, announces the winner

A contest held by the Katmai National Park to determine the fattest bear in southern Alaska, during Fat Bear Week was rocked by a scandal when over the weekend organisers saw voting irregularities during the online ballot.

According to reports, the ballots were “stuffed” in favour of the brown bear named Holly. This online contest allows people to vote on which bears have gained the most weight between summer and fall. The weekend saw Bear 345, also known as Holly, had initially taken the lead over Bear 747.

Unlike Holly (Bear 345), Bear 747 does not have a name. They took to Twitter on Monday to say, “Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed…It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately, it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent.” The authorities identified a sudden uptick of 9,000 votes for Holly in a short span of time.

For the final round, on Tuesday, when the voting at 8:00 am (Alaska time) 747 faced off against Bear 901 and went on to win this year’s competition making this his second win as the 2022 Champion, the results were announced earlier today on the Park’s Twitter account.

Fat Bear Week has reportedly been globally popular since it began in 2014 when the Katmai park rangers selected 12 bears and uploaded two photos of the same bears, one from mid-July and the other taken in early September. It is also said that during this time bears eat a large amount of food to gain the weight right before hibernating over the winter.

(With inputs from agencies)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE