[djsFlames]

Since last year I've been able to get up relatively close with a number of bears. Observed a couple families. And two this season so far.

They have such personalities, would play and tussle like your house pets, show a child-like curiosity and scavenge for berries and other things while coming across completely harmless and uninterested in people that keep their distance.

When you actually watch them, without your overwhelming fear distorting your thoughts, you realize that they're animals, not murder machines.

Their primary motivations are to survive and care for their young. Not to chase and mutilate hikers/campers.

Also consider that ecosystems need primary predators. They fulfill a key role. They help maintain populations of animals below them and when they perish, their remains are broken down and feed the lowest organisms on the chain to begin the cycle again.

You don't just disrupt the entire ecosystem/cycle that has kept everything in balance because it inconveniences people, and less so just because a handful have overwhelming fears stemming from news headlines about rare, freak events, who haven't come to terms with the truth that these are harmless animals just going about their business the other 99.9% of the time.

Comments like the OP prove that humans are the truly frightening species here, and that bears have every right to feel the security of their cubs is threatened when people are near. As a mammal I too would be afraid of these calculating, tool weilding beings that (some of which) want to eradicate me and my kind just for being.