Fat Bear Week is back — the “March Madness” of Brown Bears getting wide for the winter!
Fat Bear Week is a celebration of success, survival, and fattening. It’s a chance to learn about bears (and the salmon they love) at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Humans around the world can get online, learn about the 12 biggest bear finalists, and vote for their favourites.
Okay, but just how big are these bears? Well, they really stuff themselves. They have to. In fact, they eat the equivalent of a year’s worth of food in six months, in order to survive the winter. They can live off their fat stores for up to 100 days while they hibernate.
Okay, enough with the science. How much is this going to cost me?
A Brown Bear can eat 100 lbs of sockeye salmon on a good day. Lucky for them, they don’t have to pay for their meals. But what if you wanted to eat like a Brown Bear? How would your food bill look?
We’ll start here. The cost of an annual Alaskan hunting and fishing license for a resident is $60. Reasonable.
But maybe you’re over the hustle. Maybe you want someone else to do the hunting. For ready-to-order salmon at the grocery store, expect to pay about $20 per pound of sockeye (uncooked). Okaaaay. Your salmon habit now costs about $2,000 a day.
And if you prefer your salmon as sashimi from that fancy sushi joint that just opened up where the Outback Steakhouse used to be? Prices vary, but it’s pretty standard for a one-ounce piece of salmon sashimi to sell for about $5. At 16 ounces to a pound, that’s $80 per pound. If you’re eating like a brown bear at the sushi bar, dinner’s about to cost you $8000… sans tip!
Did we mention that NONE OF THIS FISH IS EVEN COOKED?!
Listen. A dream’s a dream, and if you want a shot at victory during Fat Bear Week, we have two suggestions… Either become a bear and move to Alaska, or invest your money so that in the future, you can buy yourself unlimited amounts of uncooked salmon. Choose the option that sounds simplest, and good luck!
