Regarding Fat Bear Week: A letter from Fit Bears demanding equal representation

And now an important message regarding the National Park Service’s “Fat Bear Week,” which started Wednesday and ends Oct. 10, from a concerned bear:

Hello, humans, my name is Titus and I’m the official spokesbear for a nationwide coalition of bears who have devoted themselves to what we consider a healthier and more active lifestyle

While we love and appreciate our Alaskan brothers and sisters involved in this year’s Fat Bear Week at Katmai National Park, and while we applaud their rotundity, we find ourselves again asking why all the focus is on bear chunkiness.

There are a growing number of us who eschew pre-hibernation gorging and instead choose moderation and exercise. But where is our representation? Why are we ignored while our chonky friends are celebrated?

Fat Bear Week is great, but there should be a Fit Bear Week as well

In the spirit of bear-fairness, we are hereby calling for the creation of Fit Bear Week, an engaging online competition involving ursids – from grizzly to black to polar to panda – who lift.

That emergency alert: Why didn't that emergency alert turn everyone into zombies? REALLY disappointing.

For too long, fit bears have been forced to live in the shadows, hiding our workout equipment deep in our dens and hosting covert body sculpting classes in the winter months when the celebrity fat bears are hibernating.

No more. We recently appointed Roarnold Schwarzenbear, a California grizzly, as president of nascent organization – Bears Intent on Getting Rrrrripped, or BiGrrrr.

“Look, we understand why so much attention goes to all the beautiful bears who take part in Fat Bear Week,” Schwarzenbear said. “And we have nothing but love for them and all their roly-poly glory. Get that juice in your caboose, bears! But we also love ourselves, and our commitment to a different kind of bear body. And we think it’s time fit bears were seen as having value to the National Park Service. Because without a platform, we’ll continue to be unseen.”

We're bears, we work out and we're not going to hide it anymore

The BiGrrrr president spoke those brave words after a recent 10K in Montana, attended by dozens of bears who had bravely come out of the forest to show off their rock-hard glutes and muscular forearms.

“Look at us,” Schwarzenbear growled, beaming. “There is nothing wrong with these bears I see stretching out their hamstrings before me. We curl logs. We get our daily steps in. We watch our salmon intake. Heck, Don over here went keto a couple years ago and now that beautiful bear has a damn six-pack! And you know what? There's no shame in that, Don. You're beautiful the way you are, and you should be admired as much as those hefty fellas in Alaska that all the humans keep praising online.”

We here at BiGrrrr don’t want to draw attention away from Fat Bear Week. We believe all bears are beautiful. All we’re asking is a chance to show humans what WE’VE got to offer. Chiseled pecs. Low BMIs. The willpower to resist eating a hunter who tripped over a cypress log while we were chasing him.

Is that a skinny bear or a human? Forget Trump's indictments. We should be worried about China's man-bear hybrids.

Celebrating fat bears and fit bears is the only path to true bear equity

Fit bears want and deserve their moment in the sun, and in the interest of fairness and bear-equity, the nation needs Fit Bear Week.

Best of all, it can be held during the winter months when the fat bears are sleeping. (Because we try to stay lean year-round, we wake up regularly to make protein smoothies.)

Anyway, humans, I have to get to CrossFit. Get rrrrrripped or die tryin’!

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fat Bear Week is back, but don't fit bears deserve love, too?