Two orphaned black bear sisters at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden have spent the past year packing on pounds, and now they're getting their own spin on a famous Alaskan tradition. Hazel and Juniper, rescued from Montana as cubs in September 2025, have each gained nearly 130 pounds since arriving at the zoo's Bear Ridge habitat, transforming from scrawny, parentless cubs into two of the facility's most popular residents heading into winter.
The sisters arrived at around seven months old after losing both their parents, according to The News Record. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks determined the cubs were not fit for release back into the wild, and the Cincinnati Zoo, which had been searching for bears to fill its newly renovated habitat, agreed to take them in. Hazel weighed about 60 pounds when she arrived, and Juniper weighed roughly 55 pounds, per the same report.
Those numbers look very different now. Hazel currently weighs 192 pounds and Juniper weighs 184 pounds, with each bear adding approximately 20 pounds in just the past two months as they settle into the seasonal eating binge known as hyperphagia. The behavior, which occurs in late summer and fall, drives bears to eat as much as they can before winter sets in, the outlet reports.
Borrowing a Page From Katmai's Playbook
The Cincinnati celebration takes its cue from Katmai National Park in Alaska, where rangers crown the fattest brown bear each year in a bracket-style tournament that has become a global phenomenon. The contest began in 2014 as a single-day event called Fat Bear Tuesday, created by park ranger Mike Fitz, before expanding into a full week the following year, according to the National Park Service. Last year's official competition drew 1.7 million online votes from around the world, per data cited by Wikipedia.
At Katmai, thousands of people vote to crown the bear that best packed on fat to survive the winter, celebrating brown bears' resilience and their remarkable ability to gain weight before the cold arrives, The News Record notes. Cincinnati's version swaps brown bears for black bears, but the underlying biology driving the spectacle is the same.
Different Coats, Same Species
Hazel and Juniper are both North American black bears, but you wouldn't necessarily guess it by looking at them. Hazel sports light brown fur while Juniper is jet-black, a difference that reflects the species' wide range of natural color phases, which also include cinnamon and blond, according to the Cincinnati Zoo. Brown color phases are more common among western black bear populations, while black fur tends to predominate east of the Great Plains.
The two cubs also have distinct personalities, zoo staff say. Hazel is cautious, a quick learner, vocal about her frustrations, and an excellent digger and climber, while Juniper is calm, trusting and outgoing, and would rather relax than play with her sister, per the zoo's account relayed by The News Record. Amy Thompson, zoological manager of carnivores at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, oversees their care.
Not Quite Hibernation, But Close
Despite popular belief, bears aren't true hibernators the way bats or ground squirrels are. Instead, they experience torpor, a lighter stage of sleep in which body temperature drops only about 10 to 15 degrees, compared to the near-freezing drops seen in true hibernators, The News Record reports. Animals in torpor remain semi-aware of their surroundings and can be woken by loud disturbances, unlike the stiffer, harder-to-rouse state of full hibernation.
Last year, zoo staff predicted Hazel and Juniper might not fully enter torpor, and the bears ended up waking once a day to check for food while generally slowing their activity. This year, the zoo expects their seasonal torpor to intensify. Staff also adjust the sisters' diet to match natural seasonal shifts, offering more greens, fruits and carbohydrates in spring and more fat- and protein-rich foods in fall to support the weight gain, according to the outlet.
A Habitat Built for Native Wildlife
Bear Ridge, the pair's home, replaced the zoo's old Bear Hill, a trio of grottoes that dated back to 1937. The habitat was rebuilt as part of a $150 million More Home to Roam capital campaign the zoo launched in 2018 to modernize its animal spaces, according to the Cincinnati Zoo. Hazel and Juniper arrived at Bear Ridge early on September 17, 2025.
The exhibit officially opened to the public on October 24, 2025, giving visitors a waterfall, climbing rocks, a hammock and a pool to watch the sisters explore, as reported by Ohio Magazine. The surrounding plant life was custom-designed by zoo horticulturists to mimic the Appalachian mixed mesophytic cove forests of southeastern Ohio, incorporating more than 700 native grasses and sedges along with 30 native canopy trees — among the most biodiverse plant communities the state has to offer.
Wild Bears Are Making a Quiet Comeback, Too
Thompson sees the Fat Bear Week theme as more than a cute photo opportunity; she views it as a tool to raise awareness, noting that many people live in areas that are natural bear habitats, The News Record reports. That awareness has real stakes in Ohio, where black bears were considered extirpated from Ohio by the 1850s due to deforestation and unregulated hunting but remain a state-endangered species today, with a wild population estimated between 50 and 100 bears, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
That recovering population is becoming harder to ignore. The state recorded a record 537 black bear sightings across 69 counties in 2025, up from 370 sightings the year before and well above the 10-year average of 239 reports. In June 2025, researchers with the Ohio Division of Wildlife and the University of Dayton fitted a 198-pound female black bear in Ashtabula County with a GPS tracking collar, the first time a female bear in Ohio has been collared for a study tracking 10 to 20 resident bears to understand habitat use and breeding.
Reducing Bear Encounters in Ohio
With black bears present in Ohio, steps to keep food away from them can help prevent repeat visits. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources advises residents in bear country to remove bird feeders and store garbage in a garage or secure container.
Thompson sees the Fat Bear Week theme as a way to raise awareness about living alongside bears, The News Record reports. Back at Bear Ridge, Hazel and Juniper can focus on their own seasonal routine: eating, exploring and settling in for winter.
