European Brown Bear Study: Aggression has Human Hunting Selection Component

AmmoLand ^ | December 27, 2025 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

In an article published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, Italian researchers mapped the genetics of European Marsican Brown bears (Ursus arctos). They found evidence indicating the bears had been selected by human hunting pressure to be less aggressive. From yale.edu:

To investigate, Italian researchers mapped the genes of Marsican bears and compared them with the genes of brown bears in Slovakia and the U.S. Their study, published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, found clear evidence that the Marsican bears had been selected for lower aggression.

The study has confirmed what naturalists, ranchers, hunters,, and wildlife managers assumed to be true. Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in the lower 48 states of the United States were known as especially aggressive since they became widely known in the Anglosphere after the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark first reported on Ursus arctos as described to them by Indians on the Missouri River.

From the Lewis and Clark Journals, Lewis, April 13, 1805:

… the Indians give a very formidable account of the strengh and ferocity of this anamal, which they never dare to attack but in parties of six eight or ten persons; and are even then frequently defeated with the loss of one or more of their party.

Lewis at first thought the “white” (Ursus arctos) bears were actually wary and shy:

 … tho’ we continue to see many tracks of the bear we have seen but very few of them, and those are at a great distance generally runing from us; I thefore presume that they are extreemly ware and shy; the Indian account of them dose not corrispond with our experience so far.

Their experience and opinion of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) soon changed

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: banglist; bear; europe; hunting; wildlife

[marktwain]

When grizzly bears are regularly hunted, they learn to avoid humans, or at least, to not attack them.

[SauronOfMordor]

Said differently, the ones who are shy of humans are the only ones who get to pass on their genes.

[marktwain]

Yes. Bears are also good at learning. Learning reinforces the genetic selection component.

[FreedomPoster]

Very interesting article and another example of feral Federal regulators screwing up the works.

[TexasGator]

“When grizzly bears are regularly hunted, they learn to avoid humans, or at least, to not attack them.”

When I was a kid we would swim in ponds with gators even at night.

Not now.

[z3n]

This very thing is the reason why IF rare 'cryptid' hominids still exist in the wild, why it is so difficult to cross paths with them. Humans have been hunting the aggressive ones and the intrepid ones for so long, all that is left are the very very shy and clever ones who avoid humans at all cost.

[riverrunner]

Hunter’s have known forever that animals that are hunted become shy.

Or they die