What do you think would happen if there were a type of bear that never killed or seriously injured people, but instead slapped them in the face?

MothBookkeeper@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 51 points –

Would we hunt them?

21

It depends on what they offered us. Like if their fur was soft, sure, people would hunt them. If we could eat their meat and it was delicious, yes, we'd hunt them. If it was a challenge to kill them, they'd be hunted for sport.

We hunt many animals much more harmless than a slapping bear. We hunt fish, for god's sake.

Well Bears are fucking massive so if they slapped you without claws they still have the ability to break bones and cause other severe injury.

Of course. Human stupidity is limitless, what makes you think we wouldn't? People would get into unarmed fights with them just for social media points. And as for actually hunting, addressing your question directly, yes, that too. Some people like to shoot about anything that moves. Others might find their fur or different parts useful somehow. And you could possibly find those killing momma bears to sell their cubs as pets in the black market.

We would never get to see them. Animals who can't either run away from us or seriously fight back are mostly extinct.

Our ancestors would have consigned them all to the fur trade a couple of centuries ago.

if it slapped me in the face and threw the glove at my feet I would take it as an insult and demand a duel. pistols at dawn.

pistols at dawn.

And give the bear mafia a chance to send assassins after me? Pistols right now.

We've hunted species to extinction for less. Why would this be any different?

We're currently hunting ourselves to extinction both metaphorically and literally

Have you heard of red pandas or trash pandas?

Hence why they stipulated no serious injury. I guess these either have excellent control and restraint or they're talking about big hairy gay men 😉

Replace slaps with "kicks" and you basically have some Kangaroos which we DO fence away and sometimes kill

They said never seriously harms or kills. Kangaroos absolutely will seriously harm or kill people.

It is rare, but those fuckers can be vicious when prompted

We'd probably try to domesticate them and use them to guard stuff.