Of course, some wild bears associate humans as food. In 2009, a wild bear made a very pointed effort to eat a Ministry of Natural Resources field worker. He fought it off for 30 minutes before his partner made it back with the canoe and picked him up.

Interestingly, nearly all recorded fatalities due to black bears fall into two categories:

1. hunter wounds a black bear which runs and seeks cover. hunter searches for bear. bear counterattacks unseen by the hunter.

2. predatory attacks by black bears.

While most due to grizzlies fall into these two categories:

1. bear – often male – guarding a carcass. they’re very aggressive, and will attack a perceived threat 100s of yards away.

2. momma bear protecting young (as with one of the fatalities in Yellowstone this year).

proportionally very few griz fatalities due to predation.

Of course, violent attacks by a bear guarding a carcass or mom protecting a young are very rare in black bears, this is a behavioral difference between the two species.

The proportionally lower number of predation attacks by grizzlies is thought to be due to the fact that there are many, many black bears living in areas frequented by people all throughout north america, while most of the grizzlies near populated areas, particularly in the Lower 48, are extinct therefore not able to prey on human yummies … in the lower 48, grizzlies number in the 100s, black bears in the 100s of thousands. Hunting of humans is actually percentage-wise very low in both species, but there are a lot of black bears out there …

Agree with scidog. Most wild bears aren’t a problem but the bears who have associated humans and food (camp bears, bears on the outskirts of town).

Of course, some wild bears associate humans as food. In 2009, a wild bear made a very pointed effort to eat a Ministry of Natural Resources field worker. He fought it off for 30 minutes before his partner made it back with the canoe and picked him up.

As they paddled down the shoreline to pick up the third person, they noticed the bear shadowing them in the woods. Chilling. We had to read the account in 2010 because we were going to be working about 80 km north of that spot–well within a bear’s walking range.

Fortunately, we didn’t have any bear problems that year even though the trail cameras photographed several bears at the bait stations–two of the crews said they didn’t see any sign of bears and were quite astonished to see that at least two different bears had been within 100 m of their tents.

Anyway, most of our food was up a tree, but we had a locked top action packer with other canned and lidded goods inside (too heavy to put up a tree). The bear managed to tear it open, ate all the organic peanut butter, ate the no-sugar no-salt peanut butter, but left untouched the regular peanut butter (sugar, salt, ‘inorganic’, one presumes, peanuts).

He didn’t open the Pepsi, but tore open the canned apple juice. He ate the healthy granola bars, but left the chocolate candy granola bars. Perhaps he’d already had enough chocolate though–he ate 5 of the 6 bars of my work partner’s chocolate bars, leaving one completely untouched, in pristine condition, still in the bulk wrapper. A very considerate bear in addition to being discriminate.

He also didn’t eat the Pilot biscuits. The square ones are probably used a shuttle tiles and make a great whistling sound as you fling them across a lake before they arc into the lake half a kilometer away and sever fish in half before they sink to the bottom and embed themselves a foot into the mud. I’ve never seen anyone else eat them either. Our local guides always buy them, but they don’t seem to actually eat them.