Bears and bats are my favorite animals. I sleep with a huge stuffed polar bear.
And I have this fantasy about going on a camping trip and having a friendly
bear follow me home to be my companion.
But it isn't going to happen. Bears are, indeed, unpredictable animals.
Black bears have a reputation for being less dangerous than brown bears. The
reason appears to be that black bears in the US were much more vigorously
hunted over the past 300 years than those in Canada. Because aggressive animals
are far more likely to be shot, the result was a change in the genetic makeup
of black bears below the US-Canada border, with a substantial amount (but not
all) of their aggressiveness wiped out.
As conservation efforts have reduced the number of black bears killed, their
"aggressiveness" genes are broadening their penetration into the general
population. As a result, an increasing number of people in the US are being
stalked and predated by black bears.
Canadian black bears were not subject to this selective killing, and have
remained dangerous.
Bears are fun to look at and fantasize about, but you don't want to bump into
them in the wild.
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