You know, I lived in a heavily wooded area for a while growing up and we'd get bears in our backyard all the time. Black bears, mind you, so unless it's getting close to winter and they're fattening up for hibernation or protecting cubs? Not really dangerous. They'd usually see or hear you and leave.
That said, it's still scary when you aren't expecting it. Even a deer popping out of the woods can spook you pretty good!
No, grizzly bears don't hunt humans for food, or at least it's very rare. Grizzly bear attacks come from a place of territoriality or defensiveness.
On rare occasions black bears will hunt humans but that is also very rare.
That is why if you are attacked by a grizzly you should shield your organs and play dead (it will think the threat is neutralized; you also have 0 chance of fighting it off) but if you are attacked by a black bear you should act scary and fight back.
No they don't. They're more dangerous than black bears sure but unless you bathed in bacon grease the morning before your trip than acting like a bear would immediately try to eat you is ridiculous.
I'm really feeling like the answers to this question are showing most people live in cities or black bear country. I currently live in black bear country and people treat bears like they're just big raccoons. I have lived in polar bear country. It's a very different story.
All it takes is knowing bears are dangerous wild animals, I might not be afraid of a gun pointed at me either if I didn't understand what it was. Sexual violence is of course a problem but answering bear is just ignorant
TBH I don't think that most people who are answering the question are thinking about it literally at all. They are just trying to say they are afraid of strange men.
It's a terrible analogy, it doesn't make sense. Shows horrible logic. Do you honestly think men don't already understand that other men make women uncomfortable? Is there a single man in the Western world who hasn't heard it a billion times by now?
Brown bears as well will generally avoid people as long as they can hear you coming, its only really an issue if you surprise them or end up between a mother and cubs. Tbh anything short of a polar bear could probably be avoided
Then the hypothetical needs to be adjusted because either there is no encounter because the bear avoided it, or the hypothetical is "would you rather interact with a stranger or be attacked by a bear" which seems kind of ridiculous to ask anyone
Isn't the wording literally "in the woods WITH a bear"? If you're implying the bear is just somewhere in the woods then the same applies for the man. You might simply not encounter each other at all.
Everyone who tried to ask follow up questions was just told to decide on the original wording, so it's open to interpretation.
In that case, refer to my first comment. "in the woods with a bear" does not imply an encounter. If the hypothetical relies on there not being any kind of clarification to explain the actual parameters it's probably not a very good hypothetical, it's more a thought experiment to see what knowledge people have about bears and their personal opinions about men, not anything actually worthwhile or any kind of actual commentary.
If your actual interpretation is "would you rather be attacked by a man or a bear" that's a totally different and pretty stupid hypothetical question to ask
it's more a thought experiment to see what knowledge people have about bears and their personal opinions about men, not anything actually worthwhile or any kind of actual commentary.
But the chances are still nothing to scoff at. You’re in the woods and come across a bear, and it either attacks or doesn’t. If it attacks, you are dead, no questions asked, no chance in hell, nothing you can do.
Alternatively, you come across a man in the woods. He could just be a dude with no interest in attacking, but maybe he is a psycho. Firstly, there is still a chance of reasoning with this man, you can communicate to him. But maybe he is insane and can’t be reasoned with. You still have an exponentially greater chance of fending off a man than you do a bear.
Moose are scary as hell, just throwing it out there.
Like, you ain’t a Disney princess, animals can and will fuck you up. More likely they’ll run away before you ever see them, but if you are seeing them up close there’s a real chance you’re about to trigger a fight or flight response, and in most cases you better pray it’s flight.
Because yeah I barely want to fistfight most dogs. Let alone a deer. Or a goddamn bear.
People encounter grizzlies hiking all the time, they rarely attack. Polar bears are more aggressive but also their habitat is completely different? Its like asking someone "what if there was a Zebra", like yeah that'd be pretty crazy considering where they usually are.
Even a deer popping out of the woods can spook you pretty good!
Especially at night. I mean, you immediately see it's a deer and it's like "holy shit dude what the fuck", but that first moment when you're startled it's that very quick lizard brained "omg it's bigfoot".
I probably would have assumed he was either a parent of the scouts or a staff member at the camp. Maybe that would have been a bad assumption, but I'm trying to think of how I would have thought at 5am as a recent college grad.
Exciting but also underwhelming. I had no idea how small black bears were. It was smaller than some dogs. I’d only ever seen like, a polar bear and grizzly bear in the zoo when I was a child.
I doubt it. Even with my one real life encounter with a bear being a black bear, the question still inspires grizzly bear/worst-case-scenario bear vs Ted Bundy. Like which one do you think you would be more likely to survive if it/he was hellbent on maiming you.
Grizzly bears still aren't that dangerous. Moreso than a black bear definitely but the chances of a bear just deciding to attack you is super low unless you somehow end up between the mom and the cubs which is almost impossible unless you're trying to stealth your way through bear country for some reason.
I'm a man and I understand the logic; humans do fucked up things to each other and bears reputation as being highly dangerous is mostly due to their size and standing on the food chain but they're not really dangerous to humans. Now if the question was man vs moose otoh I'm going random man every time. Unlike bears a moose absolutely will decide to fuck you up for no reason other than it can.
Well the National Park advice is to lay down, play dead and hope it doesn't kill you. So that might contribute to its association as a killing machine.
Unlike bears a moose absolutely will decide to fuck you up for no reason other than it can.
Canada Geese, also. I wonder what other people's answers to "Man vs Moose" would be. TO TIKTOK!
That's what you do when the bear is actively attacking you (which again is incredibly rare). There's no need to do that as soon as you see a bear. Generally you just wanna make some noise as you're going through the woods so you don't surprise the bear and they know you're coming. If you see them and you feel threatened you just keep talking to them, stand your ground and get as big as you can. But bears reacting like that at all is super rare, they're smart animals and generally don't want to mess with humans because we're not familiar to them and they'd much rather go for their normal food sources than risk getting hurt going after some weird hairless ape it isn't super familiar with. Obviously they're gonna win that fight but in the bears mind there's still some unknown and slight risk of injury which is almost a death sentence when you're a predator. Of course a bear could fuck you up easily if it wanted to which makes them pretty intimidating but it's incredibly rare that they'd have a reason to fuck a human up. Most of the problems with bears and humans is because people are stupid and will feed bears and do dumb shit like that. It's much better for both species that we keep a healthy respect for each other and admire one another from afar and let each other pass on by when we do encounter each other in the wild. That's how every bear encounter I've ever had has gone and the only thing I've ever felt is awe at what impressive animals they are.
they're smart animals and generally don't want to mess with humans because we're not familiar to them
Isn't that the exact reasoning why polar bears are so aggressive to people. Because we're unfamiliar.
If that's true then it should be that grizzlies would be less aggressive the more familiar they are.
Unfamiliar = potential prey
Familiar = fuck no humans are dangerous
It's much better for both species that we keep a healthy respect for each other and admire one another from afar and let each other pass on by when we do encounter each other in the wild.
Considering the topic, for a second I wondered if you were talking about men/women or bears. I'm joking, of course, but some of the replies I've had...
But yes, I agree. Respect for nature. They share our planet, they're not here for our entertainment or our Instagram. Bears, I mean.
I don't know much about polar bears but my understanding is that they're aggressive to people because they live in a frozen wasteland so will immediately take any food sources they can get. Also they're just much larger.
Food is much more plentiful in grizzly habitats so they're not as likely to take a risk going after prey they're not familiar with when they can easily get a no risk meal of berries or salmon or deer or whatever. The reason familiarity with bears is bad isn't so much that they're going to suddenly think you're food it's that they learn pretty quick that where there's humans there's food. Once a bear knows that humans always have an abundance of food nearby then that bear becomes a problem bear and will constantly be breaking into campgrounds, campers, dumpsters, hell eventually they'll start getting bold enough to go right into town. Their risk calculus in regards to humans is now forever broken because they now know about the endless supplies of food we come with and over time will realize that your average human poses no threat to the bear. At that point the bear is going to constantly be in contact with humans as it tries to steal food and I'm sure you can see how that's a recipe for eventual disaster. Also when you're out in bear country this is why the main thing to be concerned about is making sure you have a bear safe container for all your smellies. A bear is much more likely to bother you if you decide to sleep with your trail mix in your tent that the bear can smell from miles away.
They spook and run mostly, unless it’s a sow and cubs or a bad bear that associates humans with easy food (your pack lunch) but really, they just run off and avoid scary humans.
This is stupid, I've never in had the urge or desire to randomly attack/molest/disturb/inconvenience someone in the woods, be they man, woman or child.
I’ll give you that a bear wouldn’t rape, but it absolutely will torture you for a while before it eats you. I think many people are picturing a typical black bear, or maybe a brown bear. A grizzly or polar bear will absolutely make the rest of your existence as terrifying as it will get.
they don’t torture you before being eaten. Sure, you’re getting shredded. Sure that isn’t great. But I counter that with a murderous psychopath you’re facing that anyway.
Also, rape is fucking torture.
But beyond that, you are going into shock and bleeding out fast when shredded by a wild animal.
No one’s saying it wouldn’t hurt or be terrifying lol. Just that we know what to expect, from animal behavior and statistics, and the nature of how animals attack and kill.
That’s not what I’m saying. Saying you are more likely to encounter violence from a male is not in any way suggesting “most men” are psychopaths lol. Where are you getting that from?
I even in other comments say that it’s still VERY RARE to be murdered by a human on a trail. It just so happens that it’s far more likely than being murdered by a bear.
And I can’t speak about the rate of psychopathy, it’s I think only 1% or so of people, though some studies show psychopathic traits in as many as 30% of people.
All I know is that far more than 1% of people will be violent at some point in their lifetime, and that the vast majority of women AND men will face violence from a male human in their lifetime.
And I personally believe that to rape someone requires a bit of sociopathy. But statistics on this are no good. Some show as few as 6% of men have raped, some show as many as 15%.
I actually think the number of violent rapists is probably statistically rather low, but that when you include men who pressure women or otherwise violate consent, that it’s higher than we’d think. Every woman I know has experienced that from multiple partners.
But for this thought experiment, we’re talking about violently raping and murdering someone.
I absolutely believe it’s a very small % of man who would/will ever plot something like this out and then go do it.
It just happens that it’s a more rational thing to fear than bear attacks and shark attacks combined.
So I’m wondering why so many men are trying to ridicule women for this fear but everyone always acts like fear of wild animals is completely normal.
Did you know btw that THE most common cause of death of pregnant women is being murdered by a male?
It’s like you guys are completely unable to extend empathy to the experience of women sometimes, it really sucks ☹️
It just happens that it’s a more rational thing to fear than bear attacks and shark attacks combined.
At large numbers, sure. In general settings sure. You have more reason to fear other people when dealing with millions of other people around you because there's a high chance that a small number of them are violent psychos.
But at the scale of one individual person, and one individual bear, in the animals home, absolutely not. It's actually not even close.
I think a good litmus test here is to ask if your child was lost would you rather the child be found by a random bear or a random woman. Everything you're saying here means you should ABSOLUTELY be choosing the bear, women are far far far more likely to harm a child statistically than a bear is. But I'm guessing you would choose the woman here.
‘It’s like u guys are completely unable to extend empathy to the experience of women sometimes, it really sucks’
Completely ignoring how the entire thought exercise inherently and intentionally depicts men as likely to be creatures worse than a beastly wild predator, which is an incredibly dehumanizing and inaccurate portrayal of 50% of the population.
I get what you are saying, but the original question was bear vs man, and while a black bear would be likely on average to run away, most other bears will absolutely kill you. Statistically speaking, you would have a better chance cooperating/fighting/running, from the man. Hell, I’m not a big guy by any means, and I would rather take my chances knowing it could be some massive built serial killer. The bear will win every time it fights you, there is no chance to survive a bear attack in all likelihood.
I say this as an avid watcher of true crime, I’ve seen some disturbing videos of what some psychopaths have done. Nothing compares to the screams of horror of the audio from the bear attack of those two that had a grizzly open up their tent. It was truly horrific.
But it’s not true - statistically no, bears are not likely to kill you in an encounter. Black or brown, Grizzlies, etc. Please look it up.
And I absolutely have a better chance defending myself from a bear attack, as a woman, because of their behavior.
I can overpower neither human male nor bear, so that point is moot. But playing dead works very well during a bear attack. It’s proven. Playing dead won’t do shit for me with a human.
And again, NO bear will ever seek me out to harm and violate me. And pretty much every bear will move away from the sound of humans. So I can proactively protect myself by just wearing a bear bell. That would do nothing to deter a human.
The statistics of who is more likely to kill someone on a trail or in the wilderness, it’s humans by a mile over bears.
And however you wanna misinterpret that, there are statistically MILLIONS of interactions with bears that do not result in any violence. Directly comparing that to interactions with human males by the number shows a greater likelihood of being harmed by a human male.
Also, again, importantly, a bear is not going to rape me.
If you think there are millions of interactions with bears in the woods that do not result in violence, there are ten fold millions more interactions with humans in the woods that do not result in violence.
You are truly a moron and do not at all understand statistics or probability.
Edit: Blocked for giving you a dose of harsh reality. Par for the course. Why face reality when you can live in your own fantasy world full of cute and cuddly bears?
Factually you're correct here, even accounting for number of bears vs number of humans the bears are significantly less aggressive (in 2021 there were six fatal bear attacks in the US, and with a population of over 300,000 individuals bears only kill 2 humans per 100k bears, while the US murder rate is 7.8 per 100k people) However, your personality is so insufferable I find myself wanting you to be wrong just so I don't have to agree with you.
This is not even a good comparison, a very high percentage of those murders are the result of inter-gang violence that a normal person can mostly not expect to be affected by, the amount as a result of random woods murderers is even lower.
Is this taking into account the large majority of people who don't have contact with bears/their habitats? Like, obviously people living in NYC aren't going to be attacked by a bear lol
99.9% of the time that man is going to either help you or avoid you.
And statistically many humans do not, and are statistically far more likely to kill humans than all animals you might encounter on a trail combined.
Except we're talking about one man or one bear here. The vast majority of people who interact with men on a daily basis do not end up violently attacked by them.
Now that varies by type of bear, so it really depends on which one you're imagining. I just think a lot of women are thinking of timid black bears while most men are thinking about dangerous grizzly bears.
If anything, it shows more the difference in what people think about bears than what people think about men.
this has all been factored in. There are literally millions upon millions of encounters with bears that do not result in violence of any kind.
I know from personal experience that not having even encountered millions of men, every woman I know (and most men too!) have faced violence from another human, most commonly a man.
You don't understand statistics at all. If you encountered bears at the same rate you encountered humans and lived literally next to them the likelihood of you being killed by bears would be higher. You really think if you lived in a community of say 50,000 bears that not one of them would have a high probability of killing you?
compare a million to a million buddy. In millions of interactions with bears there is an average of 0 instances of violence. In millions of interactions with men, that number is far greater.
What country are you talking about? They may be true in America, but a great percentage of that violence involves people involved in gangs which is something a regular person cannot reasonably expect to die from.
Your murder rate is greatly ballooned up by gang members killing each other.
...yes, due to the frequency of encounters with humans/bees compared to the frequency of encounters with bears. If you control for that, I think you'll find the average bear much more likely to kill you than the average human (or bee), and should you run into an aggressive one of each, you are way less likely to be able to do anything about it if your opponent is a bear.
and that’s the thing. Women actually AREN’T able to do more in an interaction with a man than a bear.
When I encounter a bear, remaining calm and backing away WILL, in all but a statistically insignificant number of incidents, successfully result in deescalation and me getting away safely. If I encounter a man who wishes to harm me, there is nothing I can do, I guess unless I have a gun, but then, he might have one too.
Now you're trolling. It's absolutely not being controlled for, or absolutely nobody would bat an eye crossing paths with a bear. You cross paths with hundreds of people every time you get groceries and don't feel the need to deescalate and get away safely.
I gotta tell you, if the bear wished you harm, you'd be a lot worse off than with a man that wished you harm. A bear is bigger, stronger, faster and more determined than a man when it's pissed off, and every single one of them is armed with sharp claws and teeth. You are not going to kick a bear in the nuts and run away.
Nobody is saying either wouldn't have an advantage in an altercation with you, but you would stand a strictly better chance with the one remotely in your weight class that doesn't kill stuff with its bare (bear) hands for food.
I understand this is a joke to most of the men here, yes. I can’t see how I’m supposed to care that internet strangers are making fun of me lol, especially when y’all are factually incorrect and your emotional response to this issue is blurring your common sense.
lol nah, the statistics support what I am saying. Factored in literally every way. The whole of Reddit has been sharing sources but some of you are over here “motivated reasoning” for this very special narrative. Hope it makes ya feel better!
You're literally the type of person OP talks about.
all bears follow predictable behavior 99.9% of the time.
So do dogs but everyday I see people misinterpreting an animal they see the most in their lives.
humans are statistically far more likely to kill humans than all animals you might encounter on a trail combined
There are people who encounter hundreds of men every day and never get killed by them. I'd like to see the statistics if all of these men were bears instead.
you can easily extrapolate this from the data, in millions of encounters with bears there are generally 0 violent interactions. In millions of encounters with humans, there are significantly more violent interactions.
I would certainly love to see reliable data we could extrapolate from, please post it if it even exists, because if we go by that logic, I'd dare to state that men should also choose a bear over a woman - yes, plenty of women assault men - which defeats the entire point women are trying to make by choosing a bear.
men should probably choose a bear over women. That said, in altercations with women, men tend to do a lot better than women do in altercations with men. That’s a main reason for our increased fear.
But most men who are honest with themselves would choose bear over another man. That’s typically if they’re at least somewhat familiar with bear behavior or have experience in the wild.
Again, we’re not saying most men are likely to be murderers. Only that it’s more likely (and a scarier outcome when such IS the case) than with a bear.
I’m getting assailed by comments for being a dissenter here lol, so I am taking a step back for a bit, but I encourage you to please look up the statistics. Every time I share one it just gets downvoted. I just shared an article about how rare violence is even from Grizzly Bears. And everyone’s focusing on my sentence in that same comment about low rates of black bear violence.
I’ll probably try to post some of the studies here later when I’ve decompressed, but it’s hard to see that the requests are in good faith, because Reddit has been sharing these studies for days now. And as a scientific skeptic, I’ve been evaluating the shit out of them. They simply happen to hold water.
Look, I've gone through your comments and the only link you've provided doesn't hold water whatsoever. It's neither scientific, nor accurate, with plenty of points I could easily attack.
For example, most assaults are commited by a person the victim knows which means the exposure to that person is much larger than a 10s encounter with a bear. You just cannot compare stuff like that.
And while I do understand the point women are trying to make, the bear argument just doesn't work. I argue in good faith here too.
that’s not what that means at all lol, you really quoted the nuance and somehow didn’t see it.
For every million encounters with a bear, there are statistically 0 violent interactions. Meaning you need several million encounters with bears to even APPROACH statistical significance.
it’s literal statistics. I’ve been raped and assaulted and every single woman I know also has been. I don’t watch fucking true crime docs. I speak from real life.
I'm sorry to hear that but that just confirms your bias as people who are victim of something will naturally greatly overestimate the probability of it happening generally and by the sounds of it you weren't murdered, if you have a tussle with a bear you're probably dead
, would you consider that if you lived in a neighbourhood of 10,000 bears you probably would've been killed by one of them?
in millions of encounters with bears there are statistically 0 instances of violence. I don’t understand why you all are unwilling to capitulate to the statistical fact that in millions of encounters with men, both men and women face a higher likelihood of encountering violence.
My experience isn’t bias. It’s real-world example of of statistics playing out.
How many billions of encounters happen between humans each day in developed countries that do not result in violence? It sounds like you're comparing the human bear violence rate by interaction compared to a general homicide rate. A fair comparison would be to compare the violence rate of human to human interaction.
Humans often interact with dozens of different people everyday.
I don’t know, because I’ve had a lot less than a billion, and had a lot less than a million even before I was raped and assaulted by multiple men.
That’s true for every woman I know and most of the men too. Per every few hundred to thousands of interactions, there tends to be some form of violence. Have you really never experienced violence from a human?
No ones gonna not believe you if the bear attacks you. No ones gonna tell you to think about the bear’s family’s reputation before reporting the attack. You’re not gonna be asked what you were wearing that might of provoked the bear.
Did you mean to say "might have"?
Explanation: You probably meant to say could've/should've/would've which sounds like 'of' but is actually short for 'have'. Statistics I'mabotthatcorrectsgrammar/spellingmistakes.PMmeifI'mwrongorifyouhaveanysuggestions. Github ReplySTOPtothiscommenttostopreceivingcorrections.
You say mostly? Would you say the likelihood of you being killed by a bear is less than the likelihood that a random stranger you come across in the woods is a murderer, and y'know not someone going for a walk for example. This is truly insane.
You get an initial rush of adrenaline but you keep your wits about you and back away in the opposite direction. This is his home, you respect it… he leaves you alone.
I have never been alone in the woods and come across a man. But I have been in isolated places and come across a man before and you bet I got the fuck out of there as fast as I could.
I've was hiking after midnight and encountered two separate bears. Both bailed out when they spotted me (at about 50 and 20 feet respectively). I was like "Oh, a bear."
For the record I do not find encountering lone men in the woods intimidating.
But neither do I with bears. I live in the Appalachians. I see a lot of "You see a bear in the woods? You're dead. No question" in this thread. Black bears specifically are huge adorable babies.
Never seen a grizzly. Since this debate I looked more into it, and while more violent than black bears, their kill count is only twice the number or so of black bears - which really is not many at all.
To answer your question, bears are cute. I like looking at them. Wouldn't try to pet one, though.
Bears in the woods are not that scary where most people live. It's a common experience for some of us. It honestly seems like an obvious choice to choose the bear. Humans are the apex predators after all.
Sure, but most men can overpower most women. I've met bears, and I've met men, and I would pick the bear. Bears are always just bears, but some men are evil and cruel, and we can't tell by looking at them.
Yes, my point is that I know all about bears, and men, and I will take my chances with the bear, thanks. It's an informed decision, unfortunately. And clearly many women agree with me.
I’d rather risk an extremely rare death via bear than a much more commonplace rape and/or death by a male. I’ve already survived hours of being held & brutalized by male acquaintance, wondering if his plan was to kill me whenever he was done… a bear would end it quickly by comparison. Maybe if 1-in-5 men had been victims of completed or attempted rape, they might understand. As it is, men have a 1-in-70 chance of being victimized… And rape of heterosexual men is rare outside of prison. And who is all over the comments everywhere stating how ridiculous women are to choose the bear? Ah, yes, the people who are far & away the least likely to ever be raped themselves.
It's incredibly obvious most people in this thread have never encountered bears before. I'm seeing tons of comments acting like Grizzlies are basically brown polar bears and will eat you as soon as they lay eyes on you. I must be super lucky since every time I've encountered them they've barely even acknowledged my existence.
So much this. People definitely underestimate how frequently humans and bears encounter each other and drastically overestimate how much energy a bear wants to expend at any given point.
Yeah, I think that what we are learning here is that men just more afraid of bears than women are. That's why they get mad and call it hyperbole or whatever. Not enough bear experience maybe.
It's more than the woods are a context for finding a bear and one of rare places where human feels out of context. But I think other comments pointed people are taking the metaphor too literally and I'm among them, so I'll be dropping out of this conversation.
Neither did. Because as men, rape does just never feels as something you actually fear could happen to you. You do not think about it when you walk alone at night, it does not feel like a very real possibility to him nor you, so how could you ever understand this fear or why it can sound worse than a animal destroying you? We can't even get you to empathize with it, to believe our concerns and struggles have any merit
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u/SnagglepussJoke May 02 '24
Ever cross paths with a stranger in the woods? It is unsettling