The National Park Service might have crowned their winner for Fat Bear Week, but the Roosevelt Park Zoo is still in the process of making sure our bears have the bulk needed to carry them through the winter. Sandy, Judy, and Goldie are beefing up in preparation for nature’s naptime.

Did you know that bears aren’t true hibernators because their body temperatures don’t drop during the winter. According to the National Park Service, bears technically don’t hibernate but go into a state of dormancy called torpor. Every year, hundreds of thousands of bears in the United States slow down their bodily functions to outlast food scarcity in the winter.

Fat Bear Week was founded by a former park ranger in 2014. Originally a one-day long celebration known as Fat Bear Tuesday, the event engaged viewers to vote for the chunkiest bear in the park as they gorged themselves in preparation for winter. Since that original event, the event has grown along with its audience.

Our audience may not be as vast as the Fat Bear Week draws but getting them ready for winter is just as important. Our two female brown bears Sandy and Judy are each estimated to be 23 years old, while Goldie, a grizzly bear, is just turning 20 this next year. Judy and Sandy both come to Minot from Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota, but were born in Alaska. Goldie arrived with the girls from St. Paul but was a rescue from a Rehab/Rescue Center in Montana. The trio arrived in early June 2011 just before they had to be evacuated for the flood.

For the past couple of years, staff has been working on their fall diets to get them chunked up for the winter. As the staff has continued to progress with training, the zoo has been able to monitor their weights more closely both leading up to dormancy and as they venture back out in the spring.

Goldie’s last weight was recorded on Sept. 19 when he weighed in at nearly 750 pounds, while Sandy weighed in at 654 pounds on Oct. 13. Judy also weighed in on Oct. 13 a bit lighter at 625 pounds.

As of now, the bears are still active, and food motivated for training. Last season, the bears were tucked in their dens by Dec. 20. The females began to briefly emerge from their torpor state in mid-February and ate a bit of lettuce before returning to their den. By mid-March, all three were out and about on a regular basis. For now, they are feasting on an increased diet of produce and fresh salmon courtesy of the Garrison Fish Hatchery. We started getting salmon to help fatten up the bears last fall and the hatchery has been great this year providing the zoo with fish from that had their roe, or eggs, collected to be hatched and raised there.

Staff will continue to provide additional food to the bears for as long as they will eat it. Nature will let them know when it is time to begin their dormancy. While they may not make it to the size of their wild counterparts, they will be prepared for a long winter nap.