Fat Bear Week 2026 is down to four entries. This year’s expanded field has narrowed to a veteran mother and her cubs, a former champion’s daughter, an older male survivor and one of Brooks River’s most dominant rising bears.

Bear 132 and her three spring cubs, 910, 89 Backpack and 164 Bucky all advanced in the September 25 quarterfinals, setting up two very different semifinal matchups at Brooks River in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve.

132 Family defeated 806 Family 75,035 to 57,600. Backpack overwhelmed 620, 123,416 to 6,173. Bear 910 beat her sister 909 by 104,545 to 26,766, while Bucky eliminated 151 Walker 84,514 to 45,775. The totals are now listed on Explore’s official Fat Bear Week results page.

Explore’s text results table currently labels the 123,416-vote winner as “80 Backpack.” Its bear profile and official semifinal bracket identify him as 89 Backpack, so Discvr is treating “80” as an apparent table typo.

Backpack posted the largest quarterfinal total and the widest margin of the round. That doesn’t give him an advantage on Monday, however. Fat Bear Week is a single-elimination public vote, not a cumulative tournament, so each semifinal starts fresh.

The bracket now pauses for two scheduled days without voting. The semifinals are set for Monday, September 28, with 132 Family facing 910 and Backpack meeting Bucky. The championship follows Tuesday, September 29.

This year’s winner will also be a first-time main-event champion. None of the four remaining entries appears on the National Park Service’s list of previous Fat Bear Week champions.

Two semifinals, four very different routes

Bear 132 is competing with three spring cubs, making her the only family entry left in the tournament. Explore says she was first identified as a 4½-year-old in 2009 and has become one of the most experienced mothers regularly seen at Brooks River.

Her summer was interrupted in July when one cub became separated from the family for several days. Nobody witnessed how the separation happened. The cub was eventually reunited with 132 and its siblings in the lower Brooks River area.

That history makes Monday’s matchup difficult to reduce to a before-and-after comparison of body shape. A mother must build reserves for herself while also feeding, protecting and moving with dependent young. Explore included five family groups in the 2026 bracket after Brooks River recorded 19 bear families and 37 cubs during the summer, both record highs for the site.

Across the bracket is 910, a large adult female born in 2016. She is a daughter of 409 Beadnose, who won Fat Bear Week in 2015 and 2018, and she eliminated her own sister, 909, to reach the semifinals.

910 has a notable family history of her own. In 2023, she adopted 909’s cub while continuing to raise her biological cub, 620. She separated from that litter in spring 2025 and has since been able to move and fish without dependent cubs alongside her. Explore notes that she can fish successfully across much of Brooks River, including the lip of Brooks Falls.

The other semifinal is a contrast between two adult males whose success at the river looks very different.

Backpack was introduced to Brooks River as a cub in 2006 by his mother, 435 Holly, the 2019 Fat Bear Week champion. His nickname comes from a habit he had as a cub of climbing onto Holly’s back while they crossed the river. He later recovered from a significant leg injury and grew into a large adult male.

Despite his size, Backpack hasn’t built his reputation through constant confrontation. Explore describes him as willing to defend himself when necessary while generally finding a lower-conflict place among other large bears. His quarterfinal win over 620 was the most lopsided of the four September 25 contests, but Monday begins a new vote from zero.

Bucky represents the younger end of the matchup. First identified as an independent 2½-year-old in 2019, he is estimated to be about nine in 2026. The National Park Service describes him as the most dominant bear at Brooks River this year, with nearly every other bear yielding to him.

His rise has also been tied to an unusual fishing position below Brooks Falls. Bucky has repeatedly worked near the deep plunge pool, where he can intercept salmon moving through the water, jumping toward the falls or dropping back after unsuccessful attempts.

He entered the quarterfinals by ending defending champion 32 Chunk’s title defense, then advanced again by beating Walker. Backpack now stands between him and the championship matchup.

There’s a family thread running through three of the four semifinalists. Backpack is Holly’s son. 910 is Beadnose’s daughter. One of 132’s earlier cubs won Fat Bear Junior in 2021. Bucky is the exception, building his tournament story around a rapid rise in size, fishing access and dominance rather than a previous champion in his immediate family history.

That history doesn’t decide the vote. Neither does dominance at Brooks Falls, age, a famous parent or the largest quarterfinal total. Explore describes Fat Bear Week as subjective, asking voters to consider which entry best represents fatness and success in brown bears.

For one weekend, the bracket is quiet. When voting returns Monday, the remaining choices will be unusually clear: an experienced mother and her three cubs against a versatile adult female, followed by an older survivor against one of Brooks River’s fastest-rising males.

On Tuesday, one of those four entries will leave Fat Bear Week with a title none has held before.