People come in many shapes.
What shape are you?
from People Shapes
written by Heidi E. Y. Stemple
illustrated by Teresa Bellón
Little Simon/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2021
I was not the fattest child in my elementary school. Not even the fattest in my room. I was the fattest child in my family, though. My mom’s mom was a large lady. My dad’s mom was round and soft.
Even though I’d like to be thin, I don’t usually do anything about it. But no matter, now. Like Popeye says, I am what I am.
Not so, the hibernators. They need their fat. They work all summer growing it. And we love them for it.
Groundhogs spend their summers fattening themselves on our lawns and gardens so they can spend their winters hibernating in the cozy dens under our homes. We even celebrate the day they wake up to predict the weather for the next six weeks.
Bats hibernate, too.
Brumation is a lethargic state that many reptiles assume in late autumn. It’s not true hibernation, though. During this state, they often wake up to drink water, then return to their brumating state. They can survive many months without food.
Similar to hibernation in purpose, that is, to conserve energy, estivation is kind of the opposite of hibernation. This state allows an animal to escape the affects of extreme heat and humidity. Toads, Eastern Box turtles, and some salamanders estivate. The animals are not in a deep sleep, though, and can quickly, if necessary, reverse their situation in as little as ten minutes.
Even though we don’t see them unless the sun shines or it’s an abnormally warm, winter day, most squirrels don’t hibernate. They live on the acorns they’ve gathered and other tidbits they stash. They stay cozied up in their nests, awake.
Torpor describes a state of being where an animal’s metabolism slows to accommodate unfavorable living conditions. Different organisms react differently to light and weather, even us humans. Even though our metabolism does not decrease in the winter, many of us are less active, spend more time indoors, and the shorter days mean less vitamin D which may affect fat metabolism and storage.
In winter, most invertebrates enter a state called diapause, their response to adverse environmental conditions. Instead of the metabolic slowdown experienced by mammals when they hibernate, diapause actually pauses an insect’s physiology. They stop growing and developing until external conditions improve, usually in the spring.
But how about those bears? Right now the bears in Katmai Brooks Camp in Alaska are feeding on salmon, fattening themselves up in readiness for their big sleep.
You can watch them on the webcam here.
“Fat bears are successful bears,” notes explore.org in a press release. Fat Bear Week is a way for environmental agencies to help people understand the importance of conservation, explore.org explains.
Fat Bear Week started in 2014 when Park Ranger Mike Fitz noticed a fan’s comparison of the same bear on explore.org's webcam. The fan’s post showed the same bear in June and September. Fitz wanted to share his amazement at the bear’s transformation with the public. And he wanted to show the public the “vibrant” ecosystem they share with the sockeye salmon.
He decided to hold a one-day event on September 30 of that year. Pictures were posted on FaceBook, and participants voted with “likes.”
The next year and ever since then, Fat Bear Week takes place in early Fall.
This year, due to an extraordinary salmon run, “surpassing anything seen in recent memory,” according to Matt Johnson, Katmai National Park’s interpretation manager, the bears are well-nourished and ready for the vote.
NPR as well as other news outlets announced that the bracket for Fat Bear Week 2025 will be revealed on September 22, and voting begins on the 23. That’s today! (At noon, EST)
It’s a single-elimination tournament that runs through September 30, when the new champion will be announced.
Click here to meet the bears, view the rules, and vote. Discover more information about Brook River in Katmai National Park, too.
Last year (2024) over one million votes were cast from one hundred countries.
Some of us live to eat, others eat to live. For some of us finding the balance between the two is hard.
Not so, though for a bear.
I just finished The Metamorphosis of Bunny Baxter by Barbara Carroll Roberts (Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House, 2025). Bunny, a seventh grade bug-loving girl must start over in a new school without friends. Ms. Roberts shows her readers how Bunny rises to all her challenges and while not entirely dislodging the giant chip on her shoulder, begins to understand her quirky place in a quirky Middle-Grade world.
-—Be curious! (and eat wisely)
What shape are you?
from People Shapes
written by Heidi E. Y. Stemple
illustrated by Teresa Bellón
Little Simon/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2021
I was not the fattest child in my elementary school. Not even the fattest in my room. I was the fattest child in my family, though. My mom’s mom was a large lady. My dad’s mom was round and soft.
Even though I’d like to be thin, I don’t usually do anything about it. But no matter, now. Like Popeye says, I am what I am.
Not so, the hibernators. They need their fat. They work all summer growing it. And we love them for it.
Groundhogs spend their summers fattening themselves on our lawns and gardens so they can spend their winters hibernating in the cozy dens under our homes. We even celebrate the day they wake up to predict the weather for the next six weeks.
Bats hibernate, too.
Brumation is a lethargic state that many reptiles assume in late autumn. It’s not true hibernation, though. During this state, they often wake up to drink water, then return to their brumating state. They can survive many months without food.
Similar to hibernation in purpose, that is, to conserve energy, estivation is kind of the opposite of hibernation. This state allows an animal to escape the affects of extreme heat and humidity. Toads, Eastern Box turtles, and some salamanders estivate. The animals are not in a deep sleep, though, and can quickly, if necessary, reverse their situation in as little as ten minutes.
Even though we don’t see them unless the sun shines or it’s an abnormally warm, winter day, most squirrels don’t hibernate. They live on the acorns they’ve gathered and other tidbits they stash. They stay cozied up in their nests, awake.
Torpor describes a state of being where an animal’s metabolism slows to accommodate unfavorable living conditions. Different organisms react differently to light and weather, even us humans. Even though our metabolism does not decrease in the winter, many of us are less active, spend more time indoors, and the shorter days mean less vitamin D which may affect fat metabolism and storage.
In winter, most invertebrates enter a state called diapause, their response to adverse environmental conditions. Instead of the metabolic slowdown experienced by mammals when they hibernate, diapause actually pauses an insect’s physiology. They stop growing and developing until external conditions improve, usually in the spring.
But how about those bears? Right now the bears in Katmai Brooks Camp in Alaska are feeding on salmon, fattening themselves up in readiness for their big sleep.
You can watch them on the webcam here.
“Fat bears are successful bears,” notes explore.org in a press release. Fat Bear Week is a way for environmental agencies to help people understand the importance of conservation, explore.org explains.
Fat Bear Week started in 2014 when Park Ranger Mike Fitz noticed a fan’s comparison of the same bear on explore.org's webcam. The fan’s post showed the same bear in June and September. Fitz wanted to share his amazement at the bear’s transformation with the public. And he wanted to show the public the “vibrant” ecosystem they share with the sockeye salmon.
He decided to hold a one-day event on September 30 of that year. Pictures were posted on FaceBook, and participants voted with “likes.”
The next year and ever since then, Fat Bear Week takes place in early Fall.
This year, due to an extraordinary salmon run, “surpassing anything seen in recent memory,” according to Matt Johnson, Katmai National Park’s interpretation manager, the bears are well-nourished and ready for the vote.
NPR as well as other news outlets announced that the bracket for Fat Bear Week 2025 will be revealed on September 22, and voting begins on the 23. That’s today! (At noon, EST)
It’s a single-elimination tournament that runs through September 30, when the new champion will be announced.
Click here to meet the bears, view the rules, and vote. Discover more information about Brook River in Katmai National Park, too.
Last year (2024) over one million votes were cast from one hundred countries.
Some of us live to eat, others eat to live. For some of us finding the balance between the two is hard.
Not so, though for a bear.
I just finished The Metamorphosis of Bunny Baxter by Barbara Carroll Roberts (Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House, 2025). Bunny, a seventh grade bug-loving girl must start over in a new school without friends. Ms. Roberts shows her readers how Bunny rises to all her challenges and while not entirely dislodging the giant chip on her shoulder, begins to understand her quirky place in a quirky Middle-Grade world.
-—Be curious! (and eat wisely)
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