It began as a rewilding experiment. Now a bear is on trial for murder
from The Economist
On the other hand…
Hello, I’m lost and I don’t know where to go 
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I’m always wary of old guys too. Plenty of creepy nasty old men out there.
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This is just from the first page of Google search results. Of course you pick the bear.
Author: Antonia Velez
Published: 1:13 PM MDT July 26, 2023
Updated: 6:28 PM MDT July 26, 2023EVERGREEN, Colo. — A sexual predator is targeting lone female hikers in Conifer and Evergreen, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office (JSCO) said Wednesday.
Seven incidents have been reported of a man, sometimes naked, assaulting women on Jefferson County Open Space trails: six in Flying J Ranch Park near Conifer and one at Alderfer Three Sisters Park in Evergreen, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Published: Apr. 1, 2024 at 10:15 AM CDT|Updated: Apr. 10, 2024 at 5:23 PM CDT
IRON COUNTY, Mo. (KFVS) - The U.S. Forest Service is offering a reward in connection with an assault investigation on the Ozark Trail in Iron County.
The agency is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction in the case.
According to the Forest Service, a woman was hiking alone on the Ozark Trail (OT) in the Bell Mountain Wilderness Area when she was attacked by an unknown man on Saturday, March 23. This was near the intersection with the Bell Mountain Connector Trail.
Investigators said the woman was able to fight off her attacker and get away.
I
By Evan Sobol and Zoe Strothers
Published: Oct. 4, 2023 at 1:16 PM EDT|Updated: Oct. 5, 2023 at 11:52 PM EDT
MANCHESTER, CT (WFSB) – Manchester police say a 30-year-old man threw a 65-year-old woman to the ground and sexually assaulted her while she was walking on a hiking trail near Charter Oak Park.
The victim was walking on the trail when she was thrown to the ground.
30-year-old Daquan Clark-Blue groped the victim, physically assaulted her, and briefly took her purse and cell phone before the victim fought him off.
30-year-old Daquan Clark-Blue groped the victim, physically assaulted her, and
The victim was able to take a picture of Clark-Blue as he fled.“I’m the same age and I’m like how on earth did she think to grab her phone and take a picture. I think that was huge to catch him and follow,” said one resident.
She was transported to Manchester Memorial Hospital to be treated for her injuries.
Many more stories like this. I didn’t even scroll to the bottom of the first page of search results. I searched on “female assaulted while hiking”.
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The choice should consider individual feelings, including which option makes an individual feel more/less threatened, rather having a simple right and wrong.
That said, if this type of list is meant to evaluate risk rather than explain why some feel threatened, it is not a meaningful way to do so. For example, one could find a similar list of news stories in a Google search about being being assaulted by husband/boyfriend in their home. That does not mean that it’s obvious that everyone should prefer to encounter a bear in their home over their husband/boyfriend.
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A man who doesn’t understand why a woman is justified in choosing the bear isn’t paying attention. There are undeniably men out there who will take advantage of a woman in a vulnerable situation as the many actual examples provided in this thread illustrate. Women are not choosing the bear because they have had good experiences with bears. They are choosing the bear because they have had bad experiences with men. Not all men. But enough men to make them wary. Is that not both reasonable and understandable?
I hike with my dog a lot. Both I and my dog have been attacked by other dogs while hiking. So you can bet that any time we come across another dog while hiking, I am on high alert. Does every dog we come across pose a threat? Of course not. But if I don’t know the dog, how am I to know if it’s safe or not?
I am a man and often encounter solo women while hiking. Their anxiety at my approach is often palpable. That makes me feel awful but I understand where that may come from so I do not begrudge them their unease. Instead I do my best to have non-threatening body language, keep my eyes averted and as friendly a gentle smile as I can muster. If they choose to engage, I will reply with a nod of the head and quiet hello. If they prefer to just pass by, that’s ok with me as well.
Having a daughter has been responsible for much of my growth as a man in understanding the differences in the experiences of men and women and changing my default reaction from one of defensiveness to one of empathy. I understand that I am fortunate to not feel vulnerable whenever I am alone and in public and it makes me incredibly sad that not everyone has this same experience, because everyone deserves to.
I tell my kids all the time that as humans we are always works in progress. We are never finished. A lot of the work I have put in improve myself as an adult has been centered around self-awareness. That work has made me better in just about every way. But what I think has been even more impactful is making an effort to develop other-awareness. When I encounter something new, foreign to me, or something that just doesn’t make sense to me on the surface (and let’s face it…there is a lot of that for us oldies these days), I try to change my frame of reference from my initial reaction and my own experiences to one of trying to understand where it might come from. I may not always be able to buy in completely but doing the work to try to connect the dots makes that new thing a lot less threatening or confusing for sure. From that perspective, understanding why a woman might choose the bear is a no brainer.
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100% correct! Some of us (like me) haven’t even shared our stories - I’ve got more than I care to count.
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“To recap, there are men are sending me abusive emails to prove they are the safe choice.
So far, no bears have written in.”
AMAZING. Nice job guys. Thank for helping to further support why so many of us pick the bear, hands down.
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If a bear attacks a woman people will believe her, they will not say she led it on, ask what she was wearing or that she wanted it. I can’t say the same for an attack by a man.
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I agree. Whenever I read/hear a firsthand account I’m often amazed to hear other women chime in with a similar story. Shamed into silence is a very real thing.
And I’ll just add for those who are interested, I made a recommendation on the podcast thread which is about Ozempic and obesity. Around the 48:34 mark the guest relates a story where women were more likely to experience “extreme weight gain in the aftermath of being sexually abused or assaulted”. It made me pause as I thought about not only someone I know, but also this thread.
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So just walked out back and saw this; it wasn’t there yesterday evening. I think our bear are retaliating against the slander; godspeed my man 
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It’s interesting that you mention this. I tried to figure out for many years why I emotionally eat and carry extra weight and any time I do lose that weight and people notice and comment on it my urge is to eat, eat, eat and gain that weight back.
After therapy I discovered I do this in a big part because of the sexual abuse I suffered as a child by a family doctor (male). I want to be as invisible as possible and in my mind being heavier helps protect me from unwanted male attention.
The bear would not cause this type of life long psychological trauma. Always the bear.
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A bear won’t hit you in the face with a brick if you won’t give it your phone number.
A bear won’t stalk you if it told you you’re pretty and you said you weren’t interested.
A bear won’t pretend to be kind to get you to lower your guard.
A bear won’t lock you in a basement for months to torture you.
A bear generally won’t bother you if you’re not bothering it.
If you encounter a bear, it will almost always retreat slowly because it means you no harm.
If you do get attacked by a bear and you say so, people will believe you.
No one will ask you what you were wearing that made the bear attack you.
No one will ask you how much you had to drink.
No one will ask you what you were thinking, being in the woods.
No one will ask you if you even tried to fight back.
No one will ask you if you led the bear to believe you wanted to be attacked.
No one will condemn you for not fighting back harder.
No one will arrest you for harming the bear.
No one will say you deserved the attack.
No one will ask how many bears you allowed to attack you before.
The bear won’t say you were asking for it.
The bear won’t say it was consensual.
The bear won’t try to convince everyone you’re lying.
The bear won’t get his buddies to maul you too.
The bear won’t threaten you to get you to keep the attack a secret.
If you survive a bear attack, you don’t have to worry that the bear might be good friends with medical staff or the police.
You won’t have to hear that you’re making it all up to get attention.
You won’t have your reputation called into question.
You won’t get called a slut.
People won’t tell you you’re paranoid for being cautious around bears.
People won’t tell you that not all bears are dangerous.
If a bear attacks you, you won’t be told it wouldn’t be fair to ruin the bear’s future by bringing it up.
You won’t be told the bear is from a nice family and they don’t deserve the humiliation of an arrest.
IF A BEAR ATTACKS YOU, WE KILL THE BEAR SO IT DOESN’T HARM ANYONE ELSE.
If you still don’t get it, consider this:
Many women in the woods carry bear spray…
…AND IT’S NOT BECAUSE OF BEARS.
And finally, ask yourself this: If you hear human footsteps near you in the woods, are you hoping it’s a man or a woman? Pretty much EVERY woman would be praying it’s a woman.
In 2020-2022, bears killed a whopping 8 people in North America. Even if all 8 were women, that’s not even close to the approximately 12,000 women who were killed by men in that time period.
Bears = 8
Men = 12,000
This was copied from a friends post but is so true.
It’s a real head scratcher guys.
It’s a YOU problem.
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Exactly!!!
Unless you are armed, if a bear wants you dead, you will be dead. We can neither run from them nor effectively fight them – not without impressive weapons. (Or, hopefully the bear spray will work…)
They are far more dangerous/deadly than the average human in a violent encounter. As unlikely as a close bear encounter is, here are some tips and tricks for survival. I feel like the deadliness of bears is being glossed over/ignored in this comparison, so I figured I would share:
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In this context, one reframing of the question is as follows:
You are hiking alone on an isolated trail. You meet a male hiker coming the other way. He tells you that he passed a grizzly a mile back.
You
a) carry on, relieved to have survived your Man encounter.
b) turn back, glad for the other hiker’s company.
More broadly, this is a question with unstated conditional probability assumptions which may not be uniformly shared by those answering the question.
Case 1: You are going for a walk. You will meet either 1 random man or 1 random bear. Which do you prefer?
Case 2: You are going for a walk. Your probability of meeting a random man is X (say 90%) and your probability of meeting a random bear is a tiny fraction of X (say 0.1%). Which do you prefer?
Most men seem to assume this question is Case 1. Most women seem to assume this question is Case 2.
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