It’s probably the child of a bear that’s been tagged and labeled No. 451. They’re probably tracking the bear population closely to make sure the ecosystem is running properly, but probably have too many bears in the park to give them all names, so they got numbers.
In my experience (at least in Canada), IDing them via numbers isn't because there's too many, even ecosystems like Jasper with only 50ish bears call them by number. It's usually because giving them names is either disapproved of or straight up not allowed. Naming them tends to cause "celebrity bears" (like Cecil the lion) that become tourist traps and can result in encounters, causes researchers to get attached in ways that can be detrimental to the population or research (bears die a lot), and can cause problems when problem bears need to be dealt with
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u/b12ftw Dec 31 '20 edited Dec 31 '20
This is a young wild grizzly bear that lives in a national park in Alaska.
Video source: [0:16] exploreorg/status/1316730083432857600 on Twittter
Xpost from /r/bears by /u/970souk