Black bear populations are recovering in many areas of North America, creating increasing human-bear encounters. Managing these encounters protects both bear welfare and human safety.
Black bear welfare in human-dominated landscapes depends critically on preventing the habituation pathway that leads to management euthanasia. Bears that learn to associate humans with food undergo a welfare-compromising trajectory — they lose natural wariness, approach campgrounds and homes more frequently, and eventually either injure a human or become so persistent that lethal control is employed. Prevention is entirely within human control: securing food sources, managing garbage, educating visitors about food storage practices. The welfare case for strict food security in bear country is thus directly a bear welfare case — bears that never access human food maintain natural behaviour and survive. Bears that access human food initially may thrive briefly but face inevitable lethal management once behaviour escalates.