“He used to believe there should be more bears. Now he thinks the difficulties they present to people who are living where the bear population is increasing should be considered”.
It took him a bear attack to figure out what everyone else prob knew without a bear attack.
Huge numbers of urban dwellers do not know that.
To them, bears are wonderful individuals, kinda like nice humans in a furry suit.
I call it Disneyfication.
In many states, those people are a majority. It is how California passed the ban on mountain lion hunting in 1990.
It is how the state management of wolves and bears are stopped with judicial fiat.
It is ignorant and insane, but it is the mindset of tens of millions of Americans.