Originally posted by bertwert I hope this post isn't fully directed at me... I do my best to be respectful of the wildlife around here, and disturb it as little as possible.
However, I disagree, and say that fear is a good thing, and the average person should be scared of what the bear can do to them if it so chose to. Fear of wild animals leads to the respect of wild animals too...
Not directed at anyone in particular. I've just seen people hand feeding bears foxes and martins. It's only a matter of time before someone gets bit. The wild animal will get blamed and destroyed, not the person.
When I moved up here first thing I did was put in a bear proof garbage storage bin. But many locals refuse to put them in and use the bear in their back yard raiding the garbage cans as an excuse to shoot them.
Between the border collies and the bin, bears have no reason to come to my yard, and get run off if they do. A few young bears have turned up, once the dogs have run them off they don't come back. The older bears come but don't get any food and don't come back. There's a common theme here. Managing bears has to do with human behaviours, not anything about bears.
They only go where they have reason to go.
That being said, I photographed dump bears a few times, and they are way more dangerous than bush bears for a number of reasons. My strategy in that situation is go with group of 6, at least one of whom has enough experience with bear behaviour to read the signs.