#bear674

L -- a currently-unnumbered bear -- is very, very pretty. We don't know much about him, because he hasn't been around much until recently (hence why he isn't numbered) but one thing we do know is that he appears to have a permanent limp. it was much worse last season (during the few times we saw him) than it looks to be this season, but it definitely still impacts his ability to move around, climb steep hills, move quickly, etc.

this is one of our known transient bears, and since he has never stuck around long enough to get an official number, we call him L!

Transient bears and new bears present a challenge for the bear cam viewers, since 1: bears don't qualify for a number unless they are seen during at least three bear monitoring sessions in one season and 2: that number doesn't generally get assigned or announced until at least late summer/early fall, we don't have a good way to refer to them. As such, the people in the bear cam community who track the appearance of bears on the cams often assign them letters (like L here) or descriptive non-names (like Scar Boar). This helps keep things in line with the NPS's policy on bear names while also not using numbers, which prevents confusion with the official bear monitor numbers.