Otis the bear crowned chunk champion in Fat Bear Week
Ursine elder Otis - a brown bear estimated to be 24 to 26 years old - is now a four-time champion of chunk after being crowned on Tuesday (October 5) as the winner of Katmai National Park's annual Fat Bear Week.
He came out on top in an online competition pitting 12 large, salmon-chomping bears against one another.
Otis wound up besting the other finalist, a chocolate-brown male known as Walker, in the final round of voting.
"The portly patriarch of paunch persevered to pulverize the Baron of Beardonkadonk," Katmai National Park said in a Twitter announcement.
Held since October 2014, Fat Bear Week sees wildlife fans submit votes in a playoff-style competition featuring photographs and video of the bears feasting at a waterfall site on the salmon-rich Brooks River. Explore.org's bear cams capture live footage of the bear action at Brooks Falls.
First documented at the falls in 2001, Otis was the inaugural Fat Bear champion, and took home the title in 2016 and 2017. The Katmai Conservancy has named a fundraising project after him; last year, the Otis Fund raised more than $230,000 for Katmai research, education and bear-protection projects.
