While Katmai National Park’s “Fat Bear Week” ended on Sept. 30, Alaska’s southern sibling is celebrating it’s own chubby animals.
“We could only have 16 squirrels compete and be nominated to make the bracket work, so we had to be selective in what squirrels and parks got to participate,” said Carolanne Brannon, park superintendent for Texas ’s Meridian State Park.
“I think no matter what state you come from, a park ranger is a park ranger, and we love a fluffy animal when it comes to winter-time.” While Katmai National Park’s “Fat Bear Week” ended on Sept. 30, Alaska’s southern sibling is celebrating it’s own chubby animals.For the competition’s inaugural year, Brannon told Alaska’s News Source that the 16 selected squirrels were picked from a variety of Texas state parks. “Unsimilarly, obviously, we don’t have all the same squirrels in the same park, so we had each park kind of post and prompt their public to nominate a squirrel they’ve seen in the last year,” she said. “Hopefully next year, we’ll have squirrels and more of a heads-up for people and our staff to be on the lookout for fat squirrels in the park.” Unlike Fat Bear Week, squirrels will be voted for based on cuteness and “heftiness,” rather than the pounds packed on before winter.“We didn’t quite have that same theme to vote off of, so we went more for the criteria of silliness and creativity of the squirrel pose and then also some heftiness to it.” Voting will also be based on photos submitted by park visitors, rather than a live-video feed, like Katmai National Park has for its Brooks Falls location, where dozens of bears can be seen feasting on salmon.for the summer, and so it’d be really hard for us to set up a game camera or a live camera to capture them putting on the weight over the year,” Brannon said.“I think this could be a fun way to engage the public and kind of bounce off of our national park brethren and sisters to kind of bridge that gap between state and national parks,” she said. “No matter the distance or the size of our parks in our park system, if we’re national or state, we all just love the same things.” Voting for the week kicked off on Monday and will continue through Friday. Votes will be counted based on how many likes a fat squirrel receives on the Texas Parks and Wildlife’s‘We started drifting away and going in circles’: Descriptions of homes being lifted and carried away with people inside‘I tried not to cry’: Evacuee parents watch students head off to Anchorage schools for the first time this week ‘I tried not to cry’: Evacuee parents watch students head off to Anchorage Schools for the first time this weekWet & windy along southern coasts
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