Are there friendly bears

For more than two decades, Russian couple Svetlana and Yuriy Panteleenko have looked after their pet bear, Stepan.

Yes, you read that right: This oversized pile of floof is their pet. The couple and Stepan do everything together, from eating breakfast and lounging on the couch to enjoying brisk walks outside. Throughout China, there are dozens of research centers and sanctuaries dedicated to promoting the health and well-being of endangered panda bears. Many even offer visitors a chance to get up close and personal with these beloved bears, who like human affection nearly as much as they like their snacks.

Purring isn't just for cats —other animals like bears, gorillas, raccoons, and rabbits also have the ability to let out a few purrs when they're truly content. Exhibit A: this video of a tiny bear cub who can't stop purring. It is the definition of adorable. After finding baby Tahoe orphaned, the staff at the Bear League in California cared for her until she was ready to be released into the wild.

In this cute video , Tahoe playfully prances around a room full of stuffed animals and other toys. But she's dubious of an apple, because just like a pup, she knows evil could lurk anywhere. Zookeepers in Columbus, Ohio, raised Nora the polar bear from a very young age, providing her with all of the love and toys that she desired. Based on her interactions with the humans who rescued her at only six days old, it's clear just how much she loves them—and just how grateful she is to be rescued.

In this truly adorable viral video , a wild bear cub desperately tries to get a golfer's attention. In fact, for a split second, it appears as though the sociable cub was actually attempting to give the golfer a hug. If that's not a classic dog move, what is? Just like almost every domesticated dog in the world, bears love nothing more than to be pet by their favorite human—and this video is proof of their particular affinity for tummy rubs. Bears can get grumpy and upset, and there is not one bear owner that has not been bit or scratched by accident and had to be stitched up.

The risk is great that other pets could become lunch or that a bear could escape and either hurt someone else or themselves. They were just warning that they wanted to be left alone or were hungry and took feeding time too far.

A grizzly bear is different, and with one of them, you never want to engage if you can help it. Keep your eyes on the bear while slowly moving backward.

Bear attacks happen when they are surprised or within ten feet of distance between you and the bear. You will be bruised and bloody after the encounter, but you will still be alive. With black bears, they say to also curl in your legs when playing dead but not so for a grizzly bear. Just remain flat on your belly. With a black bear , it is recommended to try and fight back some when attacked but never attempt to do that with a grizzly bear.

Bears can show affection towards other bears. Mother bears are affectionate and will protect their young. Offensive attacks are very rare and include all of the killings by black bears. These are generally unprovoked predatory attacks in remote areas where bears have the least contact with people.

Bears that visit campgrounds, bird feeders, and garbage cans almost never kill people, even though these bears have by far the most contact with people. The , black bears of North America kill less than one person per year on the average, while men ages are times more likely to kill someone than a black bear. Most attacks by black bears are defensive reactions to a person who is too close, which is an easy situation to avoid.

Injuries from these defensive reactions are usually minor. Carrying a small can of pepper spray is a good way to feel self-confident around black bears. It works as well on bears as it does on dogs. This 4-year-old girl made this bear run away by spraying it in the eyes. The next day, the girl saw the same bear and it ran up a tree. Bears can look like they are stalking when they are actually approaching out of simple curiosity.

Will a bear attack because it senses you are afraid? Most people who find themselves near a black bear are afraid, and they are not attacked.

Black bears are not territorial toward people like some dogs are. Black bears are mostly afraid they will be attacked. Black bears that come into campgrounds are looking for food, not people, and can easily be chased away in most cases.

In our experience, no matter how bold and confident bears seemed, they still recognized aggressive behavior and ran away when someone yelled and ran toward them. There was a mother with a yearling cub just above him, and I realized that this cantankerous son of a bitch was going to see this mother and go after her. Finally the black grizzly started to catch up with her, because her yearling cub was dragging behind.

The black grizzly was only a few feet behind her. At the last minute she sprung on her heels, and they fought. This went on for three or four minutes. Then all of a sudden he stopped and turned his side to the mother bear, signaling the fight was over.

Well, I still needed to get up to my camp, because this blizzard was coming in. But right in front of me, on this ridge, was the most cantankerous animal I knew on this earth, all juiced up from his unresolved fight.

I had to talk to him, and it looked like he was just going to go back to eating huckleberries. But he was right between me and my camp, so I had to talk to him. And then I talk. And when he first heard my voice, he took—I would call it a hop-charge.

He covered half his distance from me in one great big bound. And finally he turned his head gracefully off to the side, stepped up the trail a few feet, and I swooped by him and went up to my camp. And an hour after dark I hear him coming up the side of this really steep hill. I go out to the side of the hill, and I can see his little reddish eyes in the glow of the fire.

He comes back up another side of the hill about every hour and a half, and he does this till 2 in the morning.

Then later, at that same place, I left a cache of gear tied way up in a tree—a tent, a sleeping bag, a dirty t-shirt—and he just tore it out of there. Which I did. Bears are charismatic species that capture the human imagination, between the way grizzly bears require and symbolize a wild, open landscape, and the way we relate to some of their human-like qualities.

Bears and people share habitat, eat the same foods, and enjoy a balance of solitary and social activity Bears are at the top of their food chain, and as such, they have some leeway to take calculated risks, weighing potential threats against benefits. Sometimes it benefits a bear to take a risk in order to enjoy a benefit—like when a bear chooses to fish for salmon, or eat huckleberries, alongside other bears, or humans.

The bear recognizes the potential risk from other bears and humans, but by accepting that risk and muting its stress response, it can take advantage of abundant food sources, crucial for putting on weight to survive the winter. This response, which is part of a process called habituation, can result in individual bears becoming more tolerant of people, if they take risks being around people without negative consequences.