Help Katmai’s Brown Bears This Fat Bear Week — Donations Matched Through Oct 3

During Fat Bear Week, fans worldwide can do more than vote for their favorite hefty brown bear — they can help protect the place those bears call home. Every donation to the Katmai Conservancy's Otis Fund made through October 3 will be matched by Explore.org, the nonprofit that operates the live bear cams at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska (matching donations up to $350,000).

The Otis Fund honors Bear #480, known as Otis, the first Fat Bear Week champion. Otis won the one-day 2014 event (then called Fat Bear Tuesday), and later earned the crown again in 2016, 2017 and 2021 before his death in 2024. His steady fishing at Brooks Falls helped introduce millions of viewers to Katmai’s bears and the salmon runs that sustain them.

"His steadfast patience and determination when fishing at Brooks Falls gave many people a sense of calm," said former National Park Service ranger and Explore.org naturalist Mike Fitz. "He was an ambassador for his species who helped people fall in love with Brooks River and its bears."

Candice Rusch, Director of New Media at Explore.org, recalled a memorable October 2021 scene: "All the bears had mostly left the river in a massive snowstorm. Otis, calm as anything, sat in the river, in the snow, catching fish." Stories like these helped build public support for Katmai and its conservation work.

How Gifts Help

Donations to the Otis Fund support Katmai National Park’s research, conservation, and educational outreach programs. Those funds are especially important when federal budgets fall short: the Katmai Conservancy notes the park covers more than four million acres of rivers, volcanoes and coastline, yet remains one of the least-funded national parks.

The Pebble Mine proposal includes a road that cuts between Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks and Preserves.Image: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

An investigation reported by The Atlantic documented a sharp drop in spending on park projects outside Washington, D.C. for the most recent fiscal cycle, a shortfall that has strained staffing and on-the-ground work in parks across the country. "Americans want parks funded at much higher levels, but Congress rarely, if ever, funds parks at levels so that they are fully staffed," Fitz said. He added that the Otis Fund is helping Katmai rangers weather these funding challenges.

Regional Threats: Pebble Mine

Conservationists are also alarmed about the proposed Pebble Mine, roughly 100 miles from Katmai. The plan would affect Lake Clark National Park and Preserve and could threaten the headwaters of the Kvichak and Nushagak rivers — the waterways that feed Bristol Bay's world-class wild sockeye salmon runs. The National Parks Conservation Association warns that phase-one proposals describe a pit about one mile wide and a quarter-mile deep, destruction of thousands of acres of wetlands, and the storage of more than a billion tons of tailings behind high-risk dams. In 2012 the Environmental Protection Agency warned that mining the Pebble deposit could cause irreversible harm to one of the world’s last intact salmon ecosystems.

Protecting salmon habitat benefits bears, local subsistence communities, the region's ecology, and a fishing industry worth roughly $2 billion to the local economy. Funds raised during Fat Bear Week and beyond help defend this landscape and support park staff who monitor and protect it.

The 2026 Fat Bear Week champion will be announced on September 29. Explore.org will match Otis Fund donations up to $350,000 through October 3. In 2025 the Otis Fund campaign exceeded its goal, raising more than $360,000 from over 4,700 supporters.