How are there so many videos, etc. of people interacting with bears peacefully even though they aren’t domesticated?

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How are there so many videos, etc. of people interacting with bears peacefully even though they aren’t domesticated?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

They’re not domesticated, but they can be *tamed*. With conditioning and training, an individual from almost any species can be made reasonably human-tolerant and probably safe to interact with, especially if it was born in captivity and has known humans its whole life. (The difference between that and domestication is a question of hundreds to thousands of generations of selective breeding specifically for human tolerance, which changes them on a much deeper level.) People can and do have pet lions, tigers, and bears all around the world, or work in animal sanctuaries to help take care of them.

The whole problem, of course, is that if you wind up on the wrong side of “probably safe” with something the size of a bear, it can take your head off as easily as it would scratch its ass. Hell, a huge predator like that can kill you by *accident* by playing a little too enthusiastically. Which is why they’re illegal to keep as pets in most places, and also why a lot of the ones you see in photos and videos with people on the internet will have had their teeth and claws surgically removed, and possibly been sedated for the photo op as well.

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