It's that time again; fall has returned to the Great Land, and the bears are packing on the pounds to get them through their long winter sleeps. That means the bears are lined up along the salmon-fishing streams, including in places like Katmai National Park, famous for its fishing bears. These big fish-eating beasts can reach half a ton feasting on salmon, packing away the calories they need to keep them healthy through hibernation, and believe you me, when they emerge, they are considerably deflated.

Right now, though, they're packing it away, not just fish but anything they can find. That also means it's time for Fat Bear Week! And, the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service are marking the occasion this year with humor, sprinkling X with fat bear memes, and I have to say, they are killing it.

First, a couple of winners from Interior:

I'm not sure if those are supposed to be lyrics, but anyway, it works, even with the 8-bit fat bear.

I'm not so sure I'd call Bear 151, pictured here, a "big back" so much as a "big backside." Either way, this is a bear that won't sit down for anyone, at least, not until it has a bellyful of salmon.

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Although, I have to say, I think the National Park Service takes the prize with this one.

Here's the thing: Laughing at the rotund, winter-ready bruins all you like, but we need remember that even at their most corpulent, these are big, fast, incredibly powerful critters and you don't want to get in between them and a food source; the results can be, to put it mildly, unfortunate. These things are 1,000-pound meat missile apex predators, and they are not afraid of you.

And, of course, this isn't Alaska, but bear memes wouldn't be complete without Baloo.

Interesting side note: Aside from the other obvious differences between the brown/griz you see in these memes and Alaska's other two bears, the black bear and the polar bear, you can bet serious money on any bear you see feeding on salmon being a brown/griz. Black bears fatten themselves up on berries, tubers, and sometimes carrion, or fresh meat if they can catch it. They tend to avoid the salmon streams, very likely because the big bears won't tolerate their smaller cousins, and may possibly view them as a possible protein source. Griz are known for eating other grizzlies' cubs, so it's a certainty they wouldn't hesitate to eat a black bear. 

Fat Bear Week wraps up soon. Get your vote in now!