As winter creeps closer, bears across North America are on a mission — to eat as much as possible before settling in for their long seasonal nap. But one Colorado bear may have taken that mission to legendary levels.
This week, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Southwest Region shared footage from a trail camera near Durango that captured a truly unforgettable sight — a massive, round, undeniably chonky bear lumbering through the frame like a walking pillow of fur and fat.
“He’s a thicc boi,” officials joked in their post, clearly as stunned as everyone else.
The bear, seemingly proud of his physique, appeared to be in peak hibernation shape — his body packed with the extra pounds that will help him survive the cold months ahead.
And judging by the footage, he’s been very committed to the pre-hibernation buffet.
While no one knows exactly how much he weighs, it’s safe to say this Durango bear is on the heftier side — and still bulking up.
There's no telling how much this bear weighs exactly, but he is, without a doubt, more rotund than most.
Or as Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Southwest Region put it:
But as funny as his rotund figure might look, his size actually signals something healthy and important.
Bears go through a natural phase before hibernation called hyperphagia, during which they can eat up to 100 pounds of food a day and gain around 6 pounds daily.
All that energy will sustain them through months of fasting, during which they might lose as much as 30 percent of their body weight.
So in the bear world, the rounder, the better — and this Colorado local is clearly leading the pack.
As one park ranger joked, “If hibernation prep were an Olympic sport, this guy just took home the gold.”
