美国国家公共电台 NPR It's Fat Bear Week In Alaska's Katmai National Park — Time To Fill Out Your Bracket

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

And now to this week's big happening in Alaska's Katmai National Park. It's Fat Bear Week, Katmai's annual celebration of bears eating as much as they can before winter hibernation¹. As NPR's sports correspondent Tom Goldman reports, it's become a hugely popular competition.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE²: Who doesn't love big, fat bears - at least from a distance? And who doesn't love filling out a bracket, where winners move on and losers go home? Combine the two, and you've got Fat Bear Week. It's ursine³ March Madness in October.

(SOUNDBITE OF BOB CHRISTIANSON'S "NCAA MARCH MADNESS THEME")

GOLDMAN: Katmai's estimated 2,000 bears were whittled⁴ down to a bracket with 12. Four of the heavyweights had first-round byes. Voters on the park's Facebook page choose their favorite from each matchup. The winner moves on to the next round.

NAOMI BOAK: I'm going to talk about two favorites that I would keep my eyes on.

GOLDMAN: As the competition got underway a few days ago, Katmai Conservancy media ranger⁵ Naomi Boak singled out numbers 435 and the appropriately labeled 747.

BOAK: Who, just by coincidence, is as big as a jumbo jet. He was so big he looked like he was ready to hibernate⁶ in July. He is the size of two bears.

GOLDMAN: This isn't fat shaming. It's fat glorifying⁷. These bears prepare for hibernation by eating as much as they can.

BOAK: They lose a third of their body fat over the winter, so they need all that fat to survive.

GOLDMAN: At Katmai, the Fat Bear Week competitors are coastal⁸ brown bears along the Brooks⁹ River. They dine voraciously¹⁰ on one of the largest sockeye salmon¹¹ runs in the world. There's a fascinating science to this annual gorging¹². Boak says a hormone¹³ that usually inhibits¹⁴ hunger switches off in the bears this time of year.

Boak and her fellow media ranger Brooklyn White chose the 2019 competitors. They wanted good before and after photos of the 12 - skinny shots from earlier in the year and recent fat ones after feasting - kind of a reverse infomercial. White says they also wanted bears that people knew after watching them on remote bear cams along the Brooks River.

BROOKLYN WHITE: And so many of those folks who, you know, would spend time watching the cams would already have a relationship with a bear that they were seeing in this contest.

GOLDMAN: The bear cams and 5-year-old Fat Bear Week contest are helping¹⁵ people connect with what goes on inside the park and helping extend the park's conservation mission. Last year, there were nearly 56,000 votes for Fat Bear Week. This year, the park hit that number in the first two days.

Obviously, people love fat bears. But there's a line in the park they don't like to cross. They try not to anthropomorphize wild animals in a wild place. That's why they give the bears numbers, although bear cam followers¹⁶ like to add names, like Lefty, Chunk¹⁷ and Grazer from this year's contest or last year's champ, Beadnose, No. 409. Boak says Beadnose is known worldwide but this year is not defending her title.

BOAK: She was a no-show.

GOLDMAN: Boak says they don't know why. Beadnose could have been injured or could have died or gone to another place to fish.

Well, whatever happened, you can say she went out on top, I suppose. Yeah.

BOAK: Absolutely. Yes (laughter).

GOLDMAN: Yeah.

BOAK: She went out in a big way.

GOLDMAN: In two days, it's Fat Bear Tuesday, when a new champion is crowned with no real top prize other than a long and successful hibernation and lots of new fans.

Tom Goldman, NPR News.

1 hibernation   

n.冬眠

参考例句：

• Bears wake up in the spring after a winter of hibernation.熊经过一个冬天的冬眠后在春季苏醒。
• The tortoise spends the winter months in hibernation.乌龟在冬眠中度过寒冬季节。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 ursine   

adj.似熊的，熊的

参考例句：

• A few weeks later a better use of beer was discovered by an innocent ursine in the Pacific Northwest.几周后，美国西北太平洋岸有只无邪的熊，发现了善用啤酒的好方法。
• Accordingly,hare bravery already became ursine bravery substitute.因此，兔胆已成为熊胆替代品。

4 whittled   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He whittled a simple toy from the piece of wood. 他把那块木头削成了一个简易的玩具。
• The government's majority has been whittled down to eight. 政府多数票减少到了八票。

5 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

6 hibernate   

v.冬眠，蛰伏

参考例句：

• Bears often hibernate in caves.熊常在山洞里冬眠。
• Some warm-blooded animals do not need to hibernate.一些温血动物不需要冬眠。

7 glorifying   

赞美( glorify的现在分词 )； 颂扬； 美化； 使光荣

参考例句：

• I had no intention of either glorifying or belittling Christianity, merely the desire to understand it. 我并没有赞扬基督教或蔑视它的立意，我所想的只是了解它。
• You are glorifying a rather mediocre building. 你正在美化一栋普普通通的建筑。

8 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

9 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 voraciously   

adv.贪婪地

参考例句：

• The bears feed voraciously in summer and store energy as fat. 熊在夏季吃很多东西，以脂肪形式储存能量。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

12 gorging   

v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的现在分词 )；作呕

参考例句：

• They had been gorging fruit in the forest. 他们方才一直在森林里狼吞虎咽地大嚼野果。 来自辞典例句
• He saw roses winding about the rain spout; or mulberries-birds gorging in the mulberry tree. 他会看到玫瑰花绕在水管上，或者是看到在桑树枝头上使劲啄食的小鸟。 来自辞典例句

13 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

14 inhibits   

阻止，抑制( inhibit的第三人称单数 )； 使拘束，使尴尬

参考例句：

• A small manufacturing sector inhibits growth in the economy. 制造业规模太小有碍经济增长。
• His bad English inhibits him from speaking freely. 他英语学得不好，这使他不能表达自如。

15 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

16 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

17 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。