Hungry Grizzly Bear Attack

So maybe I am not a certified wildlife expert, but I live in bear country and follow bear attack stories closely. The media sometimes plays them up as "bears gone wild" to make sure the public stays very scared of the wilderness...but if you read and closely look at all aspects of bear behavior some things just stand out.

In Alaska, many of our quasi-urban bear attacks have a common thread: startling the bear or alerting their "chase" instinct. Case in point-joggers bit in the butt, or bicyclists mauled. Silent persons speeding by bears in the woods--not a good idea.

Second aspect I have noticed, is a possible cause behind remote wilderness bear attacks--seems to be the "hungry bear" phenomena. A few years back some campers were mauled in ANWR, or even the famous killing by Timothy Treadwell appears to be caused by a desperate "malnourished bear". As far as I understand it, human doesn't taste good to bears, but if they are really, really hungry- probably the bear isn't picky.

Back East in the Catskill mountains of NY I know of a children's summer camp frequented by roaming black bears (these are not the more aggressive grizzly bears). But nevertheless, they actually cause no problems for the campers except leaving a mess, breaking screen doors and some interesting amusement for all. Always happy and well-fed on garbage, these bears seem to exhibit "Yogi bear behavior".

Now the recent Yellowstone bear mauling has reportedly involved "malnourished bear cubs". Tragic story, and makes me wonder about all the "bear proof" containers at the park. On the one hand, you don't want to encourage all that begging and garbage picking--but I can't help but wonder--aren't dumpster diving bears safer for us than crazed tent divers? It seems they can make the distinction between humans leaving behind food, versus actually being the food--and I believe most bears would choose KFC and mm's versus homosapiens.

I know my opinion seems backwards and controversial, but I often wonder how many 'hungry" bear attacks could be avoided if we just threw chocolate bars at them instead of pepper spray....