A bear that learns not to be scared of humans will start rooting around in your trash can. Dangerous for your pets, dangerous for you, and lethal to the bear when animal control gets called.
Top of the list, wild animals carry numerous diseases that modern medicine may struggle to treat. So, for the safety of humans, it’s best if wild animals are not comfortable sharing space with us.
Second, animals that come to associate humans with receiving food may become aggressive if they don’t get it. An aggressive wild animal is more likely to bite…see point one.
Because it’ll get them killed. It may cute if you teach a squirrel to like humans, but what about a coyote? A moose, a boar, a bear? They’re big enough to scare humans, and those creatures generally live in places where lots of the humans have lots of guns. The next human they encounter might not be as nice as you.
Teaching them that humans are friendly is potentially a death sentence for them. Be a pal and don’t teach them bad lessons when you know your own species well enough to know better.
In addition to other mentioned reasons, wild animals and humans can both be vectors for contagious diseases and controlling disease outbreaks among wild animal populations is extremely difficult
A bunch of reasons, some bad for the animal and some bad for people.
When wild animals get used to people, they stop fearing us. They come around us a lot more, which leads to more contact. Animals that can be dangerous to humans, like bears for example, could reassert their wild instincts at any moment and injure people, or we might hurt them by accident (road accidents) or end up euthanizing them to prevent them from becoming nuisances.
Animals that are conditioned to find humans normal also get used to getting food from us. Either directly because we feed them, or because they root around in our trash. This can harm their health by disrupting their natural diet, and make them dependent on us.
More contact between wild animals and humans also leads to more chances for diseases to spread, either from them to us, or us to them.
Those are not all the reasons, but they’re the main ones.
Humans and our society relies very heavily on the premise that most wild animals which would be dangerous to us if they decided to act aggressively are normally skittish and shy, giving us and our homes a wide berth.
When they get used to humans and realize we are safe enough that they can venture closer, then there is more chances of humans encountering a wild animal up close and the animal deciding to act aggressively. Feeding wild animals like bears, alligators, or coyotes directly is especially bad because then these animals associate us with food, and a hungry animal is a much more dangerous animal. Animals that are used to us are also more likely to cause other problems, such as attacking pets, damaging homes and property, emptying out trash cans in search of food, etc.
Because no matter how unscared of humans they might seem, their instincts are still telling them their life is under constant threat, so if they get startled or agitated, there’s a good chance they’ll fly into self defense mode without warning.
Fear and unfamiliarity are the only things stopping wild animals from trying to figure out where you fit in the food chain, and most unarmed people would not like the answer to that question.
If they get used to humans they get comfortable around humans. Now when you step out your garage to put the garbage out, the bear doesn’t run from the scary human. It comes over and knows that harmless human has food. And even if it playfully tries to take the garbage bag from you, a playful swipe can shred your arm.
Likewise, you take your dog for a walk, instead of a coyote thinking “ah! Scary human, run!” It sees “oh, harmless human brought a snack, thanks human.” And then you have to try and wrestle your dog out of a coyotes mouth, or take a trip to the vet, because the coyote was bold.
Plus, we’re goddamned Apex predators, we make species extinct, sometimes accidentally other times, industriously. If humans become no longer predators, nature means that makes us prey.
Wild animals are dangerous, period. Getting used to humans just means they’ll spend more time around humans, instead of scurrying off into the wilderness where there aren’t any humans to be dangerous towards.
Because a bear that’s not afraid if humans is still a wild bear, now its just not going to run from you. And now it will be comfortable getting your garbage or breaking into your cabin/tent/yurt. When bears aren’t shy, the number of human-bear meetups tend to increase. The more times a bear interacts with humans, a negative interaction is bound to happen.
Because no matter how calm they act, they’re still wild animals. We like to ‘ooh’ and ‘awww’ over those videos showing a human scritching the neck of a tiger, but we forget that the tiger tolerates the presence of humans, until it doesn’t any more.
It’s not ‘domesticated’; it’s a hunting animal that has decided that we’re not worth hunting right now.
Dangerous for the humans because animals bite and scratch, even if they don’t mean anything bad by it. They kind of bite and scratch each other all the time, as just a way to say “hello,” or to play, or for discipline. Animals don’t have words, and most of them don’t understand words at all. One of the ways they talk is by being physical with each other.
They have fur, and thick skin – literally leather, sometimes. They’re tough! We aren’t. I mean, we can be, but we need all kinds of special gear for it. But we usually don’t have that gear.
So, even if a friendly wild animal wants to say: “hello, I like you because you have food can I have some food,” they might just grab you to say that.
Some people have never been climbed by a frantic, hungry squirrel, but it’s scary and they do scratch and bite. You also can’t really escape from one. They’re very fast and clever. And squirrels are some of the mildest dangers out there.
We really don’t want random wild animals running towards us mooing or whatever. That’s scary and dangerous.
Anyhow: on to point #2.
It’s dangerous for the animals, because people are actually quite dangerous as well. And if your memaw gets bit by a dog or a coyote or a whatever, then someone’s probably going to hunt that animal down and…um…arrest it. Or at least tell the cops about it and point it out to people. Someone is eventually going to need to do something about it.
And then sometimes, it’s the wrong animal. Like, a raccoon got startled by someone grabbing it or feeding it, or the raccoon was hanging out in the trash can, then it bites your poor memaw again. She ain’t got no luck. Now she needs rabies shots, and cops gotta go find the raccoon but they don’t maybe know which one, so they just go round some up because they look the same. Um. It gets complicated. Anyhow.
Not all humans are friendly to animals. Do you know in some armed forces they ask potential recruits if they torture animals for fun? A small but still surprising number of people will give an affirmative answer. Some people like farmers or ranchers will shoot wild animals that approach their property to reduce damage and the spreading of diseases to livestock.
There’s also issues that not all people and animals encounters are simple and safe. Animals that are used to humans will invade human spaces like roads, backyards, sheds, and inside of human buildings. Animals don’t really have great forethought compared to humans, they can get themselves cornered when a Human unexpectedly shows up and startle it leading to a panicked response leading to injury. Deer don’t hunt humans, but if it wanders into a room and a human walks in and startles it, it will barrel through the human if that is the only way to escape.
There is also a concern in that wild animals have no healthcare at all, and some populations are riddled with parasites and communicable diseases. Some can pass onto humans like tapeworms, other even if they can’t transfer to humans can transfer to farm animals or pets.
If you have something a wild animal wants, it has two options.
1: back off, keep it’s distance and hope an opportunity to take it presents itself.
2: kill you and take it.
Most wild animals will take option 1 because humans are big and are often in packs. If the animal is used to humans, and is no longer wary of them, then it’ll try option 2.
Because these animals are dangerous. A bear that gets used to being around people is more likely to be around us more and thus there are more opportunities for harm. In areas in the US with wild bears for example they will kill a bear that gets too used to people in order to prevent that harm. You need to take precautions like having bear- proof trash cans so you don’t attract them and get hurt or cause them to have to be killed.
To put an illustration to the many times wild animals are unpredictable point has been stated:
My late 70-something neighbor went out daily to feed deer in her driveway. They got so used to her she would hand feed them. It was getting to an absolutely absurd level, like putting out 4-5 fresh watermelons level of absurd. I repeatedly told her deer do not need our intervention and what she was doing was dangerous. She was having none of it and lashed out in a very boomer Karen manner (they love me and would never hurt me).
Fast forward literally 5 days from her toddler tantrum, there are police and ambulance outside her house. A deer didn’t like something and reared back on her, breaking her orbital bone, fracturing her arm in two different places and a severe concussion. ‘Cute little deer’ are 150lb bundles of unpredictable skiddishness with super hard knives at the end of their legs.
She was in the hospital for over a month, no longer able to be independent and had to sell her house and move in with her daughter and her family. All because she had to live out her childhood Disney princess fantasy instead of looking out the window and going “oh look, the deer are back”.
The man went out into the wilds of Alaska with his spouse, to get close to the bears, and to make wonderful videos of those encounters. Right up until the last one, which I hope is no longer available on the web. IT’s aduio only, but you can hear Treadwell yelling for his partner to run, before it devolves into just screams, as the bear mauls him to death. She did not run, and was subsequently also killed.
These are wild animals and, however passive they may SEEM during a given encounter, they remain wild and, depending on species, instantly lethal.
Their fear/antipathy towards us is more about keeping US safe, than it is them. When they lose that hesitancy/fear over encounters with people, it will SOMETIMES end badly for those people, but it will almost ALWAYS end badly for the animal.
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A bear that learns not to be scared of humans will start rooting around in your trash can. Dangerous for your pets, dangerous for you, and lethal to the bear when animal control gets called.
Non domesticated animals can turn on you at a moments notice and kill you.
They wild animals, not domesticated animals.
Top of the list, wild animals carry numerous diseases that modern medicine may struggle to treat. So, for the safety of humans, it’s best if wild animals are not comfortable sharing space with us.
Second, animals that come to associate humans with receiving food may become aggressive if they don’t get it. An aggressive wild animal is more likely to bite…see point one.
Because it’ll get them killed. It may cute if you teach a squirrel to like humans, but what about a coyote? A moose, a boar, a bear? They’re big enough to scare humans, and those creatures generally live in places where lots of the humans have lots of guns. The next human they encounter might not be as nice as you.
Teaching them that humans are friendly is potentially a death sentence for them. Be a pal and don’t teach them bad lessons when you know your own species well enough to know better.
In addition to other mentioned reasons, wild animals and humans can both be vectors for contagious diseases and controlling disease outbreaks among wild animal populations is extremely difficult
A bunch of reasons, some bad for the animal and some bad for people.
When wild animals get used to people, they stop fearing us. They come around us a lot more, which leads to more contact. Animals that can be dangerous to humans, like bears for example, could reassert their wild instincts at any moment and injure people, or we might hurt them by accident (road accidents) or end up euthanizing them to prevent them from becoming nuisances.
Animals that are conditioned to find humans normal also get used to getting food from us. Either directly because we feed them, or because they root around in our trash. This can harm their health by disrupting their natural diet, and make them dependent on us.
More contact between wild animals and humans also leads to more chances for diseases to spread, either from them to us, or us to them.
Those are not all the reasons, but they’re the main ones.
Eventually they’ll start sewing outfits, dressing you, cooking in restaurants. Is that the world you want to live in?!?!
Humans and our society relies very heavily on the premise that most wild animals which would be dangerous to us if they decided to act aggressively are normally skittish and shy, giving us and our homes a wide berth.
When they get used to humans and realize we are safe enough that they can venture closer, then there is more chances of humans encountering a wild animal up close and the animal deciding to act aggressively. Feeding wild animals like bears, alligators, or coyotes directly is especially bad because then these animals associate us with food, and a hungry animal is a much more dangerous animal. Animals that are used to us are also more likely to cause other problems, such as attacking pets, damaging homes and property, emptying out trash cans in search of food, etc.
Because no matter how unscared of humans they might seem, their instincts are still telling them their life is under constant threat, so if they get startled or agitated, there’s a good chance they’ll fly into self defense mode without warning.
Humans are extremely dangerous. We kill any animal that seems threatening and gets too close.
Most domestic animals learn not to bite people hard by playing with people while young. Wild animals do not learn this.
Fear and unfamiliarity are the only things stopping wild animals from trying to figure out where you fit in the food chain, and most unarmed people would not like the answer to that question.
they get bad at fending for themselves and arent good at hanging with humans.
If they get used to humans they get comfortable around humans. Now when you step out your garage to put the garbage out, the bear doesn’t run from the scary human. It comes over and knows that harmless human has food. And even if it playfully tries to take the garbage bag from you, a playful swipe can shred your arm.
Likewise, you take your dog for a walk, instead of a coyote thinking “ah! Scary human, run!” It sees “oh, harmless human brought a snack, thanks human.” And then you have to try and wrestle your dog out of a coyotes mouth, or take a trip to the vet, because the coyote was bold.
Plus, we’re goddamned Apex predators, we make species extinct, sometimes accidentally other times, industriously. If humans become no longer predators, nature means that makes us prey.
Wild animals are dangerous, period. Getting used to humans just means they’ll spend more time around humans, instead of scurrying off into the wilderness where there aren’t any humans to be dangerous towards.
Because humans are unpredictable, and probably the most dangerous of them all.
Because a bear that’s not afraid if humans is still a wild bear, now its just not going to run from you. And now it will be comfortable getting your garbage or breaking into your cabin/tent/yurt. When bears aren’t shy, the number of human-bear meetups tend to increase. The more times a bear interacts with humans, a negative interaction is bound to happen.
Because no matter how calm they act, they’re still wild animals. We like to ‘ooh’ and ‘awww’ over those videos showing a human scritching the neck of a tiger, but we forget that the tiger tolerates the presence of humans, until it doesn’t any more.
It’s not ‘domesticated’; it’s a hunting animal that has decided that we’re not worth hunting right now.
Dangerous for the humans because animals bite and scratch, even if they don’t mean anything bad by it. They kind of bite and scratch each other all the time, as just a way to say “hello,” or to play, or for discipline. Animals don’t have words, and most of them don’t understand words at all. One of the ways they talk is by being physical with each other.
They have fur, and thick skin – literally leather, sometimes. They’re tough! We aren’t. I mean, we can be, but we need all kinds of special gear for it. But we usually don’t have that gear.
So, even if a friendly wild animal wants to say: “hello, I like you because you have food can I have some food,” they might just grab you to say that.
Some people have never been climbed by a frantic, hungry squirrel, but it’s scary and they do scratch and bite. You also can’t really escape from one. They’re very fast and clever. And squirrels are some of the mildest dangers out there.
We really don’t want random wild animals running towards us mooing or whatever. That’s scary and dangerous.
Anyhow: on to point #2.
It’s dangerous for the animals, because people are actually quite dangerous as well. And if your memaw gets bit by a dog or a coyote or a whatever, then someone’s probably going to hunt that animal down and…um…arrest it. Or at least tell the cops about it and point it out to people. Someone is eventually going to need to do something about it.
And then sometimes, it’s the wrong animal. Like, a raccoon got startled by someone grabbing it or feeding it, or the raccoon was hanging out in the trash can, then it bites your poor memaw again. She ain’t got no luck. Now she needs rabies shots, and cops gotta go find the raccoon but they don’t maybe know which one, so they just go round some up because they look the same. Um. It gets complicated. Anyhow.
Yeah, that’s…kind of why.
Why the heck would you want wild animals rummaging through your trash, shitting in your yard, hanging around your house, your kids.
I want to say that begging behaviors can be learned by younger generations. Mama bear does it around baby bears. Then that just snow balls.
Wild animals are called wild for good reason.
Not all humans are friendly to animals. Do you know in some armed forces they ask potential recruits if they torture animals for fun? A small but still surprising number of people will give an affirmative answer. Some people like farmers or ranchers will shoot wild animals that approach their property to reduce damage and the spreading of diseases to livestock.
There’s also issues that not all people and animals encounters are simple and safe. Animals that are used to humans will invade human spaces like roads, backyards, sheds, and inside of human buildings. Animals don’t really have great forethought compared to humans, they can get themselves cornered when a Human unexpectedly shows up and startle it leading to a panicked response leading to injury. Deer don’t hunt humans, but if it wanders into a room and a human walks in and startles it, it will barrel through the human if that is the only way to escape.
There is also a concern in that wild animals have no healthcare at all, and some populations are riddled with parasites and communicable diseases. Some can pass onto humans like tapeworms, other even if they can’t transfer to humans can transfer to farm animals or pets.
If you have something a wild animal wants, it has two options.
1: back off, keep it’s distance and hope an opportunity to take it presents itself.
2: kill you and take it.
Most wild animals will take option 1 because humans are big and are often in packs. If the animal is used to humans, and is no longer wary of them, then it’ll try option 2.
Because these animals are dangerous. A bear that gets used to being around people is more likely to be around us more and thus there are more opportunities for harm. In areas in the US with wild bears for example they will kill a bear that gets too used to people in order to prevent that harm. You need to take precautions like having bear- proof trash cans so you don’t attract them and get hurt or cause them to have to be killed.
Used to you doesnt mean friendly or safe.
It just means they aren’t afraid of you enough to keep away, which means more opportunities for things to go terribly wrong.
To put an illustration to the many times wild animals are unpredictable point has been stated:
My late 70-something neighbor went out daily to feed deer in her driveway. They got so used to her she would hand feed them. It was getting to an absolutely absurd level, like putting out 4-5 fresh watermelons level of absurd. I repeatedly told her deer do not need our intervention and what she was doing was dangerous. She was having none of it and lashed out in a very boomer Karen manner (they love me and would never hurt me).
Fast forward literally 5 days from her toddler tantrum, there are police and ambulance outside her house. A deer didn’t like something and reared back on her, breaking her orbital bone, fracturing her arm in two different places and a severe concussion. ‘Cute little deer’ are 150lb bundles of unpredictable skiddishness with super hard knives at the end of their legs.
She was in the hospital for over a month, no longer able to be independent and had to sell her house and move in with her daughter and her family. All because she had to live out her childhood Disney princess fantasy instead of looking out the window and going “oh look, the deer are back”.
Because Timothy Treadwell.
The man went out into the wilds of Alaska with his spouse, to get close to the bears, and to make wonderful videos of those encounters. Right up until the last one, which I hope is no longer available on the web. IT’s aduio only, but you can hear Treadwell yelling for his partner to run, before it devolves into just screams, as the bear mauls him to death. She did not run, and was subsequently also killed.
These are wild animals and, however passive they may SEEM during a given encounter, they remain wild and, depending on species, instantly lethal.
Their fear/antipathy towards us is more about keeping US safe, than it is them. When they lose that hesitancy/fear over encounters with people, it will SOMETIMES end badly for those people, but it will almost ALWAYS end badly for the animal.
The same reason that it isn’t a problem for a bear to be in the forest, but it is a problem for a bear to be in your car.