Fat Bear Semifinals
Bucky Dent Advances to Fat Bear Week Semifinals After Defeating Rivals
Anonymous
Voting in Katmai National Park’s 2026 Fat Bear Week has advanced to the semifinals, where Bear #132 faces Bear #910 and Bucky Dent faces Backpack. Bucky reached the semifinals after upsetting defending champion Chunk and defeating Walker, continuing a rivalry over dominance and fishing territory. This year’s bracket includes mother bears and cubs, highlighting the reunion of one of #132’s cubs after it became separated and the killing of one of Bear #909’s cubs by Bear #806.
Key Points
1
Katmai’s Brooks River had a record-high 19 bear families and 37 cubs after an abundant salmon run, prompting organizers to include family groups in the Fat Bear Week bracket for the first time.
2
Backpack’s name comes from his habit of climbing onto his mother Holly’s back as a cub. As a yearling, he suffered a serious leg injury that worried rangers, but recovered with his mother’s help.
3
When Bucky Dent struggled to secure a fishing spot as a subadult, he developed a distinctive tactic: fishing in the deepest plunge pool beneath Brooks Falls, where salmon can leap up or fall down into reach.
4
Bucky and Walker’s rivalry includes a 2024 confrontation that Walker initiated while he was still larger; Bucky lost and nearly drowned. The article describes Bucky’s later swaggering “cowboy walk” as a dominance display.
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