I've been thinking about this on and off all day. My neighborhood bears are "good bears". These are browns (coastal type Griz) , not blacks. They mostly stay out of sight, and seldom create a problem, and then it is almost always due to human stupidity. BTDT, and have had the footprints on my deck, truck bed, a torn up kennel, tipped over BBQ, and 7 foot distance night-view through a glass patio door to prove it. My next door neighbor (100 yards away) had repeated problems while he kept a pen of fowl, while at the same time I was experiencing no problems (once I got a little smarter...but sure, I'd like to keep chickens or pheasants myself - ain't gonna happen). Once time I Iooked out the bedroom window in a hard rain just at deep dusk to see a lump under the bow of the boat. Binoculars showed a 2 or 3 year old asleep out of the rain. No problem... nor one for the last 15 years or so.
As long as both sides know and abide by the rules, it is fine. And that was Jim's point - once a bear, or population of bears, begin to show - for want of a better word - disdain- for people, that/those bears need re-education, and nothing re-educates like a well placed bullet. Even for the remaining live ones. (Too bad we cannot apply that across the board for our own species).
Bears are smart. And people have the responsibility to keep them "honest" where habitats overlap.
My most impressive (to me) encounter with a bear was in my back yard, about which I've posted before. A couple cubs of the year tried to "make friends" with my Lab. I think they were sincere, being young, playful, and stupid... Before they ever came out of the woods, the sow was telling them to get the hell back where they belonged. They didn't listen, the little bastids! We backed 180 degrees around the house to the front door, at which time the dog was on his own, once me and the garden trowel were safe inside. First in the retreat was me. 20 feet in front of me was the dog, barking furiously while backing up. 20 feet from him were the cubs, 30 feet from them was the sow, who very, very, very carefully avoided eye contact with me, all the while cussing out her kids.
I fetched the '94 and stepped out on the deck above the sow, at which time she let out a squall and beat feet for the trees. The cubs followed. The dog continued to bellow for several minutes (like I didn't know....).
Like I said, I have "good bears".
. But I never forget that it only takes one.... I trust bears (circumstantially) more than I do people. More predictable. They don't lie... bluff.. sometimes. Lie, no.
When we first moved into this home in summer of '88 we were advised of a sow with triplets who habitually wintered just over the hilltop. (In season, bears bed on the ridge-top here, and fish the river at night - some summers as many as 10, including cubs). We saw the sow with cubs several times, just passing through the 1.5 acre yard. She was never a problem, and apparently raised her kids, including two subsequent sets of twins, to abide the rules. When she was poached out of season, and her radio collar thrown in the river, I would have had little problem getting up a neighborhood lynch party if we could have identified the SOB responsible.
Good neighbors are hard to come by.... bad neighbors should be eliminated.
I'm not that picky about species.