Fat Bear Week returns: Here's when the annual competition will be held

Fat Bear Week is back!

The famed March Madness-style bracket competition that pits some of Katmai National Park and Preserve 's bulkiest and most beloved brown bears against each other in the arena of public opinion is returning for its 11th year later this month.

“Fat Bear Week is always a celebration of the success of the bears,” Naomi Boak, a media ranger at Katmai, previously told USA TODAY . “Not just the big boys, but the sows with cubs, the young teenage bears, the subadults.”