"Yes, the odds of encountering a "killer" bear are quite low...
How low? According to the author:
"That means that over the course of the last decade I've been fortunate enough to have seen close to 15,000 black bears. Of those, perhaps one third have seen, smelled or heard me. Out of that number (approximately 5,000 black bears), I've encountered only two that were, beyond any doubt and without provocation, stalking me. "
2 out of 5000. The one story about the man et by a bear he could come up with in his neck of the woods, was about a guy that fell off his horse. Like a farmer falling into his sty.
I subscribe to Fur, Fish and Game, not Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. I live in the woods. It's not a hobby interest as in O.L, or S.A.
My direct experience was in N.W. Ontario, where I not only showed their DNR that there wolves where after their expert surveys had found none. I brought them to the spots where the wolves had come after they left to piss on the ground they stood on and brought them to a spot where they could see them do it. The bears are all over, but not where people were, unless they were successful in getting their food/garbage. What I could do is stalk them and get their pic. Something the pros consider damn near impossible. That's because they know the bears don't like people and none of the outfiters could get close, unless the bears were at the dump. For the bears in uninhabited Queen's land they had to make their own dumps to see them. I just take out a topo and go directly. Absolutely none of those folks would agree black bears stalk humans for dinner. The only people that do think that are folks that don't live with them.
The only time confrontation occurs is when folks feed them and get in their way afterwards, or as I indicated above. They're not after the human, they're after his food.
Bush pigs eat berries, insects(mostly ants), larva, carrion and other incapacitated things, rodents. They don't stalk and kill. Biologists and other folks that study them know this. If they stalked and ate people thy'd have tried it with me, since I was the only human within a hundred miles and I had plenty of bacon, ham, fish ect. There's a pic of a mink on my desk right now, that sat on a tree 2ft away, and begged for some fish. That pic was taken at the blueberry estate property of a ~300 lb bush pig I took my ~7y/o daughter to see. We camped alongside his berry patches for a week. Somewhere I have pics of him and the mama moose that lived there with her calf.
See that face on my belt on my home page? That was taken with a hickory stick and my own points. He thought he was stalking rabbits, 'till I said boo. The pants are smoked brain tan, from a couple of tasty deer.
I've seen males fight a couple of times. They are fast! They don't give a hoot if they get smacked in the nose by another bear! They go at it hard, until one backs down. A 105 lb 18 y/o female ain't going to drive a hungry 400 lb male bush pig off with an elbow to the nose if their intent is dinner.