Fat Bear Week 2021 winner 480 Otis snags title for fourth time

Brown bear 480, known as ‘Otis’, stands in a river hunting for salmon to fatten up before hibernation at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska (Picture: Reuters)

The winner of this year’s Fat Bear Week, an online contest around the bulkiest bears, is no stranger to taking first place. 480 Otis won his fourth title on Tuesday night, at more than 25 years old and

Otis won the inaugural competition in 2014, and also in 2016 and 2017. This year, Otis garnered 51,230 votes in the last round of the competition to edge out bear 151 Walker and its 44,834 votes.

The weeklong competition included a dozen bears and close to 800,000 votes were submitted.

‘As we celebrate, like a true champ 480 is still chowing down,’ tweeted the Katmai National Park and Preserve in southwest Alaska.

The roughly 4.1million-acre park is home to around 2,200 brown bears and many fat bears thrive there particularly on the Brooks River due to its abundance of salmon.

Otis is one of the older bears residing at Brooks River. According to his biography, he is ‘missing two canine teeth and many of his other teeth are greatly worn’, which makes his victory all the more remarkable.

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