If you'd like to take a wholesome little break from all the horrible news that is 2020, I have two words for you. Fat. Bears.
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Each year the brown bears of the Katmai National Park in Alaska are pitted against each other in a battle of the bulge known as the fat bear week contest. Forget elaborate political campaigns and empty election promises, this contest is all about the bulk.
Here's how it works. Each year the lovely folk at Katmai National Park take photos of a selection of the local brown bears (there's more than 2000 of them in the park) in June, at the start of the salmon run on the Brooks River.
They photograph them again after the bears have spent a couple of months feasting in preparation for their winter hibernation (although bears don't actually technically hibernate - they enter a similar state called torpor instead). The bears are then put head to head in a single elimination tournament, with public voting for the fattest bear in each pairing.
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At the end of fat bear week one gloriously hefty bear is named champion.
Each morning my son and I head to the fat bear week website to vote for our favourite bear. While the contest lures us in with promises of big bottomed bears (on which it definitely delivers), it also sneaks in a bit of science.
We've learnt how big brown bears can grow, with the biggest boys in the contest easily topping 500kg.
We've learnt that the bears can put on up to 2kg of weight each day while gorging themselves on salmon, and that they'll eat as many as 40 fish in a day.
We've learnt that park rangers can now use a laser scanning system to estimate how much the bears weigh.
And we've learnt that, during their hibernation, the bears will lose up to third of their body weight, which is why this pre-winter bulk up is so important.
The contest even includes a live video stream from the river, so you can watch the bears in all their beefy glory in real time.
This years fat bear champion is set to be crowned today. In my opinion bear 747 is a strong contender, as is the bear 32, who's appropriately nicknamed 'Chunk'. I think it's safe to say though, whoever comes out on top, this is the one election where we're all winners.
