If I say "hey" to my dog in a certain tone, it will drop in it's tracks and roll over in a submissive gesture. It has learned to fear the idea of upsetting me. No, I never struck the dog, don't even ask that. My voice is all the cue that the dog ever got from me. What i am getting at is that if a momma black bear has been pursued by man, it will give cues to it's young that man is to be feared. If theindividual bear that somehow missed this point from momma, disregards man and does not avoid man,it wouldtend to get eliminated from the gene pool rather quickly. This natural selection over time will breed a group of animals that instinctively fears man from one generation to the next, provided the fear is reinforced any time it is challenged in a given encounter. If man suddenly alters their behavior toward them, this conditioned response can be reversed rather quickly, as animals are extremely intellegent when it comes to interacting with their environment. True what you said PA that if a bear attacks a man and is killed, he would not communicate this to other bears. But..neither would he pass his traits on to other bears. Don't sell animals short either. They absolutely do have the ability to learn a behavior from one another over time.
The original thread was about wolves killing some poor guy's dogs, by the way. Funny how these things take on a life of their own sometimes.