To Name or Not to Name? Bears of Brooks River 2022 page 18
Bears at Brooks River are assigned numbers for monitoring, management, and identification purposes. Inevitably, some bears acquire nicknames from staff, but naming wild animals is not without controversy.
Is it appropriate to name wild animals?
Personnel at many bear-watching areas in Alaska, like Brooks River, attach nicknames to frequently seen bears. These serve to help people identify, track, and manage the animals. However, names undoubtedly alter how we relate to an animal. For some people, a named bear (or one with ear tags or a radio collar) may seem less wild and more pet-like than an unknown counterpart.
Names also carry meaning, intentionally or not.
What stigmas would you attach to a young bear nicknamed Fluffy versus a sizeable male bear named Killer?
How would those stigmas alter your experience when watching that animal?
With those questions in mind, assigned numbers are certainly more neutral than a name, but over time a number may lead to just as much anthropomorphizing as a nickname.
No matter how we relate to these animals, though, the bears with nicknames remain wild animals at Brooks River. Management decisions are never based on whether or not a bear is named, and the bears are entirely unaware of the numbers and names assigned to them.
NPS photo/T. Darling
