747, the Fat Bear Week Champion of 2020. (Click on image to make him even BIGGER.) Photo from Katmai National Park & Preserve at www.nps.gov/katm/learn/fat-bear-week.htm.
Choose the fattest bear of the year! Katmai National Park’s Fat Bear Week is coming up. Voting will take place September 29-October 5, with the winner to be crowned on Fat Bear Tuesday, the first Tuesday in October. (Fat Bear Jr. voting is September 23-24.) Explore the Hall of Champions to see those grizzlies chosen as the heftiest chunks from prior years.
Some of the largest brown bears on Earth make their home at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska. Fat Bear Week is an annual tournament celebrating their success in preparation for winter hibernation.
Want to see and find out more? Go to GoWYLD.net and check out the bears in Britannica Library or Britannica School in Animal Kingdom, under Children/Elementary.
In Animal Kingdom you can read all about mammals, as well as amphibians and reptiles, birds, mollusks, fish and other sea animals, insects and other arthropods, and extinct animals.
Each animal page includes an introduction, where they live, physical features, behaviors, and reproduction. We were surprised to learn that these “large, powerful mammals are related to dogs and raccoons.” There are also pictures and a short video from Britannica’s incredible Images and Video collection.
You can change the reading level by selecting reading level 2 (Young Adults/Middle). This will include more information about specific bears, and more images and videos.
From Britannica: The Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi), a subspecies of brown bear that lives in Alaska, is the largest. It weighs up to 1,720 pounds (780 kilograms) and can be almost 10 feet (3 meters) long. Polar bears can be just as heavy but are somewhat shorter.
Britannica Library and Britannica School are available in Wyoming libraries and remotely with a Wyoming library card number and pin through GoWYLD.net. Use the Browse Databases by Title link to access sthem.
For more information, check with your local library or contact Chris Van Burgh, Database Instruction Librarian at the Wyoming State Library, chris.vanburgh@wyo.gov.