2023 Fat Bear Week Endorsement

Think of a mama bear. What does that idea conjure in your mind? Perhaps it is fierceness, since mother bears are ornery and defensive when necessary. Maybe it is commitment, because mother bears dedicate years to raise a single litter. Perhaps it is sacrifice, since mother bears provide cubs with time and energy that could otherwise serve to promote her own physical health.

We’re fortunate to watch many different female bears at Brooks River in Katmai National Park. Yet there is one whose maternal efforts are legend. One who can fish successfully almost anywhere. One whose fearsome reputation is long-lived among other brown bears, including large adult males. Don’t get in her way. Don’t lurk near her fishing spot. Don’t look at her cubs. Do give 128 Grazer your 2023 Fat Bear Week vote.

Early and late summer photos of 128 Grazer. Photo on left is Grazer on July 8. She is facing left and walking through water. Photo on right is from September 14, 2023. She is facing left and standing in belly deep water. She is round.

Grazer | ɡrāzər |

  • (2005 – Present) A female brown bear documented to use Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska. Also known as bear 128.
  • verb. [with object]
    The effort of a mother bear to maul or attack another bear with little provocation, especially in defense of her cubs: She grazered him.
  • Origin: Bear cam slang. Circa late 2010s and early 2020s.

Grazer is famous among people and (maybe) infamous among brown bears for her extraordinary defensiveness. When she arrived at Brooks River in 2016 with three cubs representing her first known litter, she would confront and attack other bears with little or no provocation. Sometimes it appeared that another bear only had to look in her family’s direction to draw her ire, as bear 83 knows well. 

Her behavior didn’t mellow when those first cubs grew into yearlings the following summer. Nor did she rethink her aggressiveness toward other bears when raising her second litter. While mother bears can change their parenting strategy as they gain skill and experience, Grazer continued on the path forged with her first litter—the best defense is a good offense.

Grazer separated from her most recent litter at the beginning of summer 2023. Since then, she’s lived a brown bear bachelorette’s life. Her pheromones attracted the attention of male bears during the mating season. They chased her tail, with varying degrees of success, right bear 164? After the mating season, and also during it, she focused on eating. A lot. Her waistline carries the weight of her success.

Grazer’s formidable reputation carried into this summer. She ranked high in the hierarchy among bears and was perhaps the river’s most dominant female. Notably, 151 Walker deferred to her frequently in early summer. Walker is a big dude and he’s not shy about displacing bears from preferred fishing spots. Bears have good memories, though. Maybe he had too many bad experiences with her in the past and didn’t want to risk more dangerous confrontations.

In this video, Walker is in full dominance mode as he works to displace another adult male at Brooks Falls. But watch his behavior when Grazer shows up on the boulders above.

And in case you need more examples of Grazer bulldozing bears, here you go. (Watch with sound on for the full effect.)

During my brief time at Brooks River early last summer, I watched bears fish largely without success because the expected salmon run was slow to arrive. Some of the big guys caught some fish. 747, for example, sat at Brooks Falls like he always does and let the fish come to him, but even he wasn’t catching many. Most other bears fared worse. They roamed from one place at the river to another, searching for the few early arriving salmon.

Grazer, though, has practiced—no, perfected—her fishing tactics in many different places. If fish are jumping Brooks Falls, she’ll catch them there. If there’s space in the waterfall’s far pool, she’ll catch them there. She’ll work the jacuzzi below the falls. She’ll fish in the middle of the night. She’ll use her strength and agility to chase down salmon. 

One evening last summer, I stood on the riffles platform watching her work the river in front of me. While the riffles provides brown bears with fishing opportunities, it is often a more challenging place for bears to catch salmon than the falls. The riffles doesn’t provide the same pinch points in topography as the falls and salmon have many escape routes. There aren’t many bears who can make the best of that situation consistently, especially when few salmon are in the water and bears are forced to run through the water to get them.

Grazer parks herself on the near bank upstream of me. She moves into the water after several minutes and spots a lone salmon. She lunges and misses. She chases. Another lunge, another miss. She continues running at full speed through the water while somehow keeping an eye on the salmon. With a final lunge, she fully submerges into a two to three-foot-deep pool and surfaces with the salmon in her jaws. I can see the fish gasping in the air as blood runs from deep puncture wounds in its body. Grazer eats all of it—tail to head—even the gill plates and mandibles.

In early summer when few bears were catching salmon, Grazer found success. She is perhaps the best angler at Brooks River. 

Brown bear standing in river. Water is flowing over boulders forming riffles. Bear is moving in direction of camera. Water drips off her fur. She holds a sockeye salmon in her mouth.
Bear 128 Grazer with a catch in the riffles on July 6, 2023.

Let’s not lose sight of Grazer’s goals either. She’s working to build the fat reserves necessary to sustain her survival during winter hibernation. She’s also building fat in case she gives birth in the den. Bear cubs are born mid winter while mother hibernates. Abundant fat reserves are necessary for mother bears to reproduce, so getting fat is vital to a bear’s reproductive success.

In a way, my 2023 Fat Bear Week endorsement is a recognition of Grazer’s full-bodied and fat-addled collection of work since 2016. When she is raising cubs Grazer is the archetypal mama bear. She’s formidable, strong, brave, skilled, and  successful. She deserves your vote in Fat Bear Week 2023.

Fat Bear Week bracket. Four bears (806 cub vs 428; 402 vs 901) in two first round matches on left. Two bears (32 and 480) are in bye round on left. Four bears (128 Grazer vs 151; 284 vs 164) in two first round matches on right. Two bears (747 and 435) are in bye round on right. Graphical cartoon bears fill the top and bottom center of the bracket.
My Fat Bear Week bracket predictions for 2023. Yes, yes, I know. I don’t predict that Grazer will win. There’s a difference between who I think should win and who I think will actually win, after all. Which bear’s corner are you in? Download your bracket from FatBearWeek.org.

10 thoughts on “2023 Fat Bear Week Endorsement

  1. Mike, your thoughts and persuasive effort to write this ode to Grazer is just about enough to change my consideration in her direction.  I was never and still am not a diehard 128 fan, though I agree with your reasons for campaigning for her.  I just might have to reconsider her highness.  Thanks for your very enjoyable and accurate reasoning.

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  2. My vote this year is for Grazer 128. Not only was her moonlight fishing and incredible productivity the highlight of the season for me, but she seems to have a kind of soft spot for Otis 480, especially when they were midnight fishing buddies. Watching her splash by him (and then look over to make sure he was watching) cracked me up every time. And even when the salmon runs slowed down, her Weresheep alter-ego splashed around the Riffles feasting like a Queen.

    She’s got a very tough road ahead in the bracket esp. against 747 Bear Force One, but my prediction is Otis vs Grazer, with Grazer taking it home this year.

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  3. Thanks, Mike,

    always such informative and interesting articles which you write. I,too, am impressed and amazed at this bear; I hope she wins the fat bear competition.
    I have enjoyed your being back this summer to lend your knowledge about the bears and Brooks Falls.

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