In October of last year, Alaskans and other viewers all over the world gathered at Katmai National Park and Preserve’s website to watch 2022’s victor Bear 747 and his rivals put with pounds in this park’s Fat Bear Week.
This year, however due to the possibility of a shutdown for the federal government likely to take effect on the weekend, 747 might not leave the gate.
The park’s spokeswoman Cynthia Hernandez said in an email on Friday that a cut in funding from the government during the shutdown could impact the annual event next week that drew over a million people last year, as people observed our brown bears grow into hibernation.
“Hopefully there isn’t a chance of a lapse,” Hernandez said. “However should a lapse occur, we’ll need to move the date of Fat Bear Week.”
As per NPR, a previous shutdown in the year 2018 caused an National Park Service down to the essential staff. This did not include employees who managed social media.
The Katmai event is dependent on the webcams operated through Park Service partner explore.org. But Hernandez said Explore.org “will not run Fat Bear Week since the NPS is essential to Fat Bear Week’s successful run.”
“(S)hould there be a prolonged delay in funding from the government, we’ll need to examine plans based on the time it takes to Congress to provide funding for parks,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez was unable to respond to any additional questions on Friday regarding the possibility of shutting down. The parks social media accounts early Friday morning offered information on The Fat Bear Junior competition, which is a prelude of Fat Bear Week tracking four brown bear cubs.
