What really impressed me was how the bears that do attack, mostly the males, mostly stalk potential victims that are out alone, the bear being quiet and stealthy in the process, and then ambushing them by charging and overpowering them in an instant. That's not what I would have expected.

I would have expected the common scenario was one or more people coming close upon a bear and surprising them.

I'm not so quick to dismiss dla's "preservationist versus conservationist policies" theory though. While there may not be any scientific studies that support it, there may be regional differences in people/bear encounters that do.

I've purposely hiked the areas in the Ozarks that have the highest concentrations of Black Bears quite a bit. I've only seen one, and it was hiding from me.

Contrast that with some of encounters Wondering_Daisy has related. In one of them, the bear was following her, and she fit the classic victim profile described by Herrero.

Wondering_Daisy has also commented on the regional differences in bear habits and their attitudes towards people.

Let's apply dla's theory to the Black Bear's habits and their encounter's with people on a regional basis.

I would say that Black Bears in the Ozarks have many more encounters with hunters than bears out West and in Canada. We probably have much higher ratio of hunters to bears than either of those places. We probably have a much lower ratio of people/bear encounters too, even though we have more people living near their or within their habitat.

In short, I'd say it's likely that the bears here have learned to avoid people, and those that don't learn that do not last long.

In the cases W_D related, I can assure you that upon hearing something similar here, there would be locals that, during hunting season, would be out there looking hard for any bear that was willing to come near people. They'd cook bacon for breakfast and wear the grease as an attractant and wait a week out there to bag a bear.

The difference between preservationist versus conservationist policies is that there is no safe place, or time, for a bear to encounter a person here. If a bear comes onto my property and wreaks havoc I have the right to kill it. There is very little public land that is off-limits to hunters. There are very few times of year when there isn't a season to hunt something. Wild hogs and coyotes are open season almost all year long.

I could be wrong, but I believe that here, Black Bears know that people can, and will, and do, kill them, and that they've become very good at avoiding encounters with them.

For sure, not many bears get taken here.

So I'll go further and say I believe these bears know when hunting season is, and they lay low during that week or two. And given the chance, I'd bet I could leave a cooler of food out for a week here and no bear would approach it.

All of this really testifies to the intelligence of the Black Bear. In my case, I've been lucky that they are smart enough to avoid me. I can't say the same for myself about avoiding them. I think I learned my lesson though. Better late than never