Please Advise! That Big Fat Bear Scandal. Fishy?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Tuesday saw the final round of voting for Fat Bear Week, the popular competition rating the most successful bruins of Alaska's Katmai National Park & Preserve. But this year the election has been plagued by scandal. Can the public truly have faith in the Fat Bear democratic system?

Signed,

Ursus Major

Dear UM,

Dr. Steve weeps. At last we have reached that awful place where electoral fraud intersects with terrible puns. And yes, democracy can only bear so much.

As mentioned above, Fat Bear Week is an annual competition featuring the plumpest quadrupeds of Katmai National Park. In the spring they emerge from their dens looking like deflated fur basketballs. Summer and fall are spent putting on weight like first-year college students. Just as Robert de Niro added 60 pounds and took home an Oscar for Raging Bull, the raging bears of Katmai must eat their way to glory.

Unlike Donald Trump's claim that he weighs only 239 pounds in spite of his despot belly, these candidates are proud of every pound. At Katmai, MAGA means Maximum Animal Girth Acknowledged. Come fall the best of the bears have been transformed into forest zeppelins, nature's finest examples of body positivity. Kanye West can suck it.

To raise awareness of conservation, Katmai staff organized Fat Bear Week, profiling some of the biggest bears in the park and inviting people to vote for Alaska's Lord of Lard. It's not simply about tonnage — the winning bear should also be the one that has made the most progress and perhaps even demonstrated the most salmon-snagging pluck. Healthy bear size also means that at Katmai, the salmon runs remain healthy as well.

Last year's winner 480 Otis was defeated in this year's quarter finals by bulbous upstart 901, who went on to win a semi-final against 128 Grazer. Meanwhile in the other semi-final, 2020 Fat Bear champ 747 (a.k.a. Colbert, a.k.a. Bear Force One), faced off against 435 Holly. This is where things really got Trumpy. Just as the Mar-a-Lago martinet claimed to have been fraudulently defeated by “a massive dump” of votes, last Sunday Bear 747 saw a big lead disappear under the sudden onslaught of online support for 435 Holly.

Does a bear dump (votes) in the woods? So it would seem. In this case at least, the fraud was real. Thousands of votes cast for 435 Holly had been spam (mmmm, Spam). Happily, 747 did not have to book a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping & Hatchery. Fat Bear organizers declared that based on legitimate votes, 747 was the semi-final winner.

But will this decision be respected? Imagine a Jan. 6 insurrection, but with bears. When defendants weigh 1,200 pounds, they need not hire Rudy Giuliani.

This isn't the only fish-fuelled competition to suffer from controversy this fall. An Ohio walleye fishing derby recently became a viral sensation when it turned out the winning fish had been stuffed with lead weights to tip the scales. When even fishing derbies have jumped the shark, America is truly in deep waters.

Now that we know what's going on, suspicion waxes fat. If you can win a derby with loaded fish, or a chess match by sticking beads up your butt, surely those sneaky bears could be up to something. Could they be padding their weight by eating leaded fish? Is 901 Yogi raiding pic-a-nic baskets? Is 747 really one bear, or two bears in a bear suit?

There's a lot at stake for the winners — movie roles, Disney contracts, royal visits, Charmin endorsements.

At last the final results came in. The ursine deadline was 6 p.m. PDT Tuesday, followed by the announcement of the 2022 Fat Bear winner: 747.

Or so they say. Dr. Steve has seen some bear-faced lies in this race. There may still be trouble bruin.

Dr. Steve will show himself out.