I grew up in north GA back in the 60’s/70’s and never saw a wild bear. They were around but I never encountered one. Now I go back to Jasper area to visit my folks every year or two and I think I have seen at least one on every trip, climbing into garbage containers, once on the back porch, once by the community pool. Cant be helped to encounter them as we build into the habitat.
You’re lucky. We have them in central PA, in towns with city water and mini marts and concrete all over the place, but tucked up between hills. A while back I was driving along the highway and saw what I thought was a huge dog until I was close enough to clip it. It was a bear probably going to make a withdrawal from the McD dumpster.
It's them moving into ours. There are fewer farms, since they specialized and moved to the Midwest to get big. The farmers used to shoot everything, especially predators.
What are pastures, sheep pens, chicken houses? To predators, a farm is just a big, warm fridge full of goodies.
That's why the farmers kept the trees cut down to create open spaces for grazing, and so they could see the enemy approach. Habitat for wild critters boomed when the farms moved West in the 1950s and '60s. We got nothing but trees now. All the animals are back, even where they haven't been seen in a century: Deer, moose, bear, bald eagles, some wolves, coyotes (which are actually new here), and even a mountain lion or two. All have been sighted within 50 miles of Midtown Manhattan--and bears are absolutely everywhere. This was unheard-of when I was a kid here a half-century ago. The bears? Unheard of 20 years ago.
You notice the new subdivision houses. But most people don't notice that there are millions more trees and acres of wildlife habitat than there have been since the mid-19th century.