You know, I think we’re a little too harsh on the bears of this world for their weight. For example, this past winter, a black bear named “Hank the Tank” in Tahoe went viral for his large size, and it seems as if the people only really care about the larger bears in this world.

Another major example of this phenomenon comes from the Fat Bear Week hosted by explore.org. Every year, explore.org shows off a number of very large bears in order to determine who is the fattest of them all, allowing the public to vote between September and October. Last year, a bear named 480 Otis took the gold metal.

This year, however, we may already know who’ll take the cake for the largest bear of the season. You see, most of the time, when bears first appear on camera out of hibernation, they’ve managed to lose a significant amount of weight. According to the National Park Service, they might loose anywhere from 15-30% of their bodyweight during the long rest. Generally, then, the bears come out looking quite scrawny, like Grazer and her cubs in the following tweet from explore.org.

One bear, however, has already caught the eye of many onlookers for his rather shocking size after leaving hibernation, forcing explore.org to question whether or not he even hibernated. That bear is none other than 747 “Bearforce One”. Based on some photos, it looks like “Bearforce One” has had at least one major fight since his last appearance on the bearcam. Whatever the case of his hibernation, however, there’s little question over whether or not this guy will be a contender in Fat Bear Week 2022.

Image Credit: explore.org on Twitter

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