Alaska

Voting begins for Alaska's Fat Bear Week after a contestant was killed in an attack

Published

1 year ago

October 3, 2024

Voting begins for Alaska's Fat Bear Week after a contestant was killed in an attack

Voting in Katmai National Park’s famed Fat Bear Week was underway Wednesday after a bear killed one of this year’s competitors and delayed the bracket reveal by a day.

Bear #469 attacked and killed bear #402 on Monday morning at Brooks River in the Alaska park, the National Park Service said in a release, pushing Monday’s bracket reveal to Tuesday.

The attack and the subsequent killing were captured live on webcams that have been set up in the park to follow the bears all summer. The nonprofit organization explore.org, which hosts and broadcasts the bear livestreams, held a live conversation Monday to discuss the attack.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the incident.

Fat Bear Week. (K. Moore / Katmai National Park via Reuters) — Bear #402 in Katmai National Park. The bear was killed Monday in an attack.

“National parks like Katmai protect not only the wonders of nature, but also the harsh realities,” spokesperson Matt Johnson said in the park service release. “Each bear seen on the webcams is competing with others to survive.”

Bear #469 was not included in the bracket, released Tuesday.

How Fat Bear Week works

Fat Bear Week, which the park service calls “an annual celebration of success,” puts 12 bears in the Alaskan Peninsula to the test before they head into hibernation for the winter.

Voting takes place over seven days, culminating in Fat Bear Tuesday, when one bear is crowned the fattest of the season.

“People may vote using any criteria they see fit,” the National Park Service said. “In the end, one bear will reign supreme.”

Explore.org encourages voters to “vote for the bear you believe best exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears.”

“Fat equals survival” for bears, who head into their dens for months without any food and could lose up to one-third of their body weight during that time, the park service said. Surviving hibernation means bulking up on a year’s worth of salmon and other snacks in only six months.

Large male brown bears can weigh up to 1,500 pounds in coastal areas or up to 500 pounds in interior areas, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and they can be 30% to 50% larger than female brown bears.

They weigh the least when they leave hibernation in the spring and can increase their weight by more than 50% by the time they re-enter the den in the fall.

The fat bears of 2024

This year’s contest pits eight bears against one another in the first round of the single-elimination bracket. Voting began Wednesday and will continue Thursday.

Four more bears earned a bye to the second round of voting Friday and Saturday.

In round one, Bear #909 Jr., who won this year’s junior contest, bested Bear #519, a female recently independent from her family. Bear #909 Jr. will now try to beat Bear #128, also known as Grazer, a mother bear who holds last year’s Fat Bear title.

Grazer is described as one of the “most formidable, successful, and adaptable bears” at Brooks River, according to the park service. In July, both of her cubs were “swept over Brooks Falls” toward Bear #32, also known as Chunk, who attacked and injured one of them before Grazer could come to their rescue.

The injured cub died later, and the surviving cub competed in Fat Bear Junior 2024, according to the park service.

Chunk, who the park service said is the “most dominant bear on the Brooks River,” has a bye and will face the winner of the Thursday matchup between Bear #856, a very large adult male who is one of the biggest on the river, and Bear #504, a mother bear and newcomer to the competition.

In another round one faceoff, Bear #903, a smaller male and another Fat Bear Week newbie, beat Bear #909, the mother of the junior contest’s winner. He will go head-to-head with Bear #747, a two-time Fat Bear Week victor so large he was named after an airplane and was once estimated to weigh 1,400 pounds.

The final round one matchup is between Bear #151, a large adult male nicknamed Walker” and Bear #901, a female who returned to the river alone after her first litter of cubs did not survive. The winner will move on to round two to meet Bear #164, a male who has grown a lot in the last few years, now appearing about as tall and as long as Bear #747.

Voting concludes Tuesday, and the fattest bear will be declared the winner.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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Alaska

Over $150K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

Published

8 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Over 0K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – An Alaska drug task force seized roughly $162,000 worth of controlled substances during an operation in Juneau Thursday, according to the Juneau Police Department.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) approached 50-year-old Juneau resident Jermiah Pond in the Nugget Mall parking lot while he was sitting in his car, according to JPD.

A probation search of the car revealed a container holding about 7.3 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, as well as about 1.21 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl.

As part of the investigation, investigators executed a search warrant at Pond’s residence, during which they found about 46.63 gross grams of ketamine, 293.56 gross grams of fentanyl, 25.84 gross grams of methamphetamine and 25.5 gross grams of MDMA.

In all, it amounted to just less than a pound of drugs worth $162,500.

Investigators also seized $102,640 in cash and multiple recreational vehicles believed to be associated with the investigation.

Pond was lodged on charges of second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, five counts of fourth-degree misconduct involving a substance and an outstanding felony probation warrant.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

20 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

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Alaska

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

iStock / Getty Images

This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.

Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.

But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.

This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.

Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.

But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.

Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.

Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.

That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.

An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.

Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.

Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.

Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.

However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.

Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.

It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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