(Photo courtesy of T. Carmack) “Chunk, the winner of Fat Bear Week”
James Guiry
Connector Contributor
The annual Fat Bear Week has come and gone, and your champion is: Bear #32, or Chunk. While this week may sound mean to the bears, fat bears in September are a sign that an ecosystem is healthy. As apex predators, it indicates that they have plentiful food supply, meaning other species are also thriving.
According to Explore Live Cams, Chunk arrived at Brooks Falls, a part of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, when he was 2 ½ years old in 2007. Chunk suffered a broken jaw in June of this year, an injury many thought would lead to his death, but instead it led to a story that could inspire even the most apathetic person. Even with the injury, Chunk was able to find a way to put on enough weight for the hibernation season. He adapted to his broken jaw and found a way to eat enough salmon. Chunk didn’t win this years title for no reason, his struggle and perseverance means that he is a fat bear deserving of this year’s title.
Brooks Falls is a popular area for Grizzly bears due to the migration of sockeye salmon upstream. The national park itself is home to one of the largest and most protected populations of brown bears in the world. Katmai National Park and Explore.org partner to give people live video feed of the area. These live feeds, along with the annual Fat Bear Week, are a fun way to bring awareness to the remarkable things both organizations do.
In a time when we are unsure about national funding, and there are talks of selling off public land to corporations, it is important for the public to understand exactly what these parks do. Katmai National Park, although in Alaska, offers a nature preserve for one of the symbols of the North American wilderness, among other things. Their website says, “The purpose of Katmai National Park and Preserve is to protect, study, and interpret active volcanism surrounding the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, extensive coastal resources, habitats supporting a high concentration of salmon and brown bears, and an ongoing story of humans integrated with a dynamic subarctic ecosystem. The park and preserve offer unique opportunities to explore vast wilderness and immense volcanoes, watch brown bears, fish for salmon and trout, and many other activities” (National Park Service, 2025). Katmai National Park and Preserve is just one of 63 National Parks, and 433 designated park sites in the U.S. They all act as places to preserve the beauty of the country and all its wildlife.
The closest major national park to Lowell is Acadia National Park in the town of Bar Harbor, Maine. It is New England’s only major national park. The park is home to over 1,000 plant and animal species that the employees work hard to protect.
The National Parks Service is an integral park to the U.S. economy, while they receive funding from congress, they have an immense economic output. According to the NPS, they contributed $55.6 billion to the U.S. economy while supporting 415,000 jobs in 2023. Thus, the National Parks Service is not only important for preserving the natural beauty of our country, but also for our economy.
