4 | NOVEMBER 10 • 2022 

for openers
Bearly Believable
I

t’s hard to believe that near-
ly a month after the elec-
tion, we are still left with 
no definitive explanation 
of how this year’s vote was 
rocked by scan-
dal. Oh, excuse 
me, allow me to 
explain.
I’m sorry, I’m 
not referring 
to this past 
Tuesday’s mid-
term elections. 
I’m referring to the attempt by 
someone to disrupt and affect 
the outcome of … Fat Bear 
Week. As NPR’s online head-
line of Oct. 12 read: “Fat Bear 
Week emerges from scandal to 
crown a new champion.” I’m 
really getting tired of saying: 
“You can’t make this stuff up.”
Fat Bear Week is a real 
online contest conducted by 
explore.org that bills itself 
as “the home of the world’s 
largest live nature network,” 
featuring an endless lineup 
of cameras capturing animals 
being live-streamed in their 
natural habitats across the 
globe. 
Fat Bear Week voting is held 
at this time each year when the 
bears are found gorging them-
selves on salmon in the Brooks 
River in Katmai National Park, 
Alaska, in preparation for 
their winter hibernation. Thus 
proving you can gain wait eat-
ing salmon if you don’t adhere 
to portion control. I challenge 
Florine Mark to tell the bears 
that.
The contest features a brack-
et system similar to an NCAA 
basketball tournament, with 
each bracket featuring photo-
graphs of the bears, each iden-
tified by a name and number, 

as they balloon up over 
time. (This is precisely 
why I ask people not to 
post pictures of me eating 
on Facebook.)
Online voters click on 
the bear that they “Believe 
best exemplifies fatness.” 
The bear with the most 
votes advances to the next 
round until a champion is 
crowned. Yes, I guess society 
hasn’t gotten its fill of human 
body shaming, so it now has 
to turn to bear shaming.
“Bear” with me, but things 
got weird. It turns out some 
of the bears in the contest 
were running negative TV ads 
about each other. OK, that’s a 
joke, but this next revelation 
actually isn’t. As reported by 
NPR: “The organizers of the 
scandal uncovered voting 
irregularities that were meant 
to skew the results of a pivotal 
semifinal.” 
Yep, while the bears were 
stuffing themselves on salm-
on, someone was actually 
stuffing the virtual ballot box! 
Apparently, we finally have 
ourselves a fish story that is 
not an exaggeration. 

AND THE WINNER IS …
Once the voting was officially 
validated, Bear #747, affection-
ally referred to as Bear Force 
One, was crowned the winner, 
weighing in at an estimated 
1,400 pounds. Asked how it felt 
to win in his post-fattest bear 
contest press conference, an 
emotional Bear Force One said: 
“I’m just blessed to have been 
born big-boned.
”
More than 1 million votes 
were cast over the course of 
Fat Bear Week. I would love 
to know how many of those 
million voters took the time 

to vote for a fat bear — but 
didn’t make it to the polls on 
Tuesday. On second thought, 
maybe I don’t want to know.
To be completely transpar-
ent, I was once linked to a 
ballot-stuffing incident back 
in 2006. HOUR magazine was 
coming out with its annual 
Best of Detroit issue which 
presents their “annual list of 
the very best Metro Detroit 
has to offer, as voted by HOUR 
Detroit readers.”
By virtue of a mass email 
campaign spearheaded by 
my neighbor Mark LoPatin 
that I was not aware of, I 
ended up with enough votes 
to be named (Drum Roll …) 
“Sexiest Male Radio Voice.” At 
least I wasn’t named “Fattest 
Radio Personality,” but I sure 
gave it my best shot back in 
those days. I mean, I did go by 
the name “Big Al.” 
Now, with apologies to 
the aforementioned salmon, 
it turns out something else 
was “fishy” about yet another 
recent animal weight-related 
contest. And you have to trust 
me, I’m still not trying to 
“bait” you into believing some-
thing that isn’t true.
On Oct. 24, the Cuyahoga 
County, Ohio, prosecutor’s 
office charged two professional 
fishermen with cheating in 
the Sept. 30 Lake Erie Walleye 
Trail tournament. The anglers 

were about to be awarded the 
$29,000 first prize for catching 
the combined heaviest five 
walleye. 
However, the unusually 
high total weight of their haul 
raised suspicions, prompting 
the tournament director to 
slice open the fish where he 
discovered 10 lead weights 
planted inside, eight weighing 
12-ounces each and two each 
weighing 8 ounces. As if there 
wasn’t enough lead in our fish 
already.
The charges are a fifth-de-
gree felony which gives new 
meaning to winning by “hook 
or crook” … or should I say 
winning by a “crook with a 
hook.” Punishment could be 
up to 12 months in prison and 
$2,500 in fines. 
I say send these fraudulent 
fishermen up the river, put 
them in “sole”-itary confine-
ment, slam their cell door shut 
and throw away the lox.
How despicable that we 
humans have actually now 
sunk low enough to resort 
to cheating to win contests 
involving animals. 
 Although frankly, I’d be 
willing to look the other way 
if some “Lions” tried to cheat 
their way to a victory. 

Visit Al’s website at laughwithbigal.com, 

“Like” Al on Facebook and reach him at 

amuskovitz@thejewishnews.com.

Alan 
Muskovitz

Contest winner 
‘Bear Force One’

EXPLORE.ORG

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