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How Bear Hibernation Works : Short Wave In honor of Fat Bear Week coming to a close, Short Wave is revisiting our episode on black bear hibernation. (Fat Bear Week is the annual tournament celebrating some of the fattening bears of Katmai National Park.) On today's show, Rae Wynn-Grant, a large carnivore biologist, explains there's a lot more going on during hibernation than you might expect.

Short Wave

The Fattest Bear Wins!

The Fattest Bear Wins!

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A black bear Terry Allen / 500px/Getty Images/500px Plus hide caption

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Terry Allen / 500px/Getty Images/500px Plus

A black bear

Terry Allen / 500px/Getty Images/500px Plus

In honor of Fat Bear Week coming to a close, Short Wave is revisiting our episode on black bear hibernation. (Fat Bear Week is the annual tournament celebrating some of the fattening bears of Katmai National Park.)

On today's show, Rae Wynn-Grant, a large carnivore biologist, explains there's a lot more going on during hibernation than you might expect. Like giving birth. And re-absorption of nutrients from their poop.

Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Viet Le and fact-checked by Emily Vaughn and Ariela Zebede.