The winner of beloved Fat Bear Week has been crowned for another year but this season’s search for the chonkiest champion was not without scandal and controversy. A voter fraud scandal was afoot in the final week!
Katmai National Park — the preserve behind the annual thicc teddy quest — kicked the week off with the spicy gossip which nearly saw a crowd favourite disqualified for spammed votes.
🚨🚨🚨FAT BEAR WEEK SCANDAL🚨🚨🚨
Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed.
— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 10, 2022
Someone was so gung-ho about getting their largest love through to the grand final they found a way to swarm the poll form with shoddy votes. The absolute nerve of these people, is nothing sacred anymore??
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. We have discarded the fake votes and today’s official totals are:
747: 37,940
435: 30,430— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 10, 2022
The Katmai NP team were thankfully able to sift through the fraudulent votes and the correct fuzzy fish-fiending friend continued on to the final round.
On Wednesday morning Australian time the ultimate winner of Fat Bear Week was unveiled. After a tense match-up, it was 747 — lovingly nicknamed Bear Force One — who threw his weight around and took the crown for 2022 Fat Bear Week. Simply have to respect the game.
The votes are in- you’ve decided to upgrade to fish class & fly w/ 747!
747 was deemed an order of magnitude more massive than 901, who experienced troubling tummy turbulence enroute. 901 made a strong start in her 1st #FatBearWeek appearance. Expect big things in the future! pic.twitter.com/i6IPy2ajEw
— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 12, 2022
“Ultimately, 747 ripped apart the salmon — and the competition — to seize his second crown as the 2022 Champion,” the national park’s team posted.
“Time to celebrate and do the happy dance jumbo jet jiggles!”
Congratulations to 747 Bear Force One for snapping up the competition (and clearly eating all their food) to lock in your second title of Fattest Bear — you deserve it. Now go have a big lie down for the next few months you bloody big boofhead.