Males, Females, Bears, Humans

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So for awhile I've made the joke 'don't worry guys, female bears would rather run into humans than male bears too, for similar reasons'.

Bears are intelligent. Female bears will choose to be closer to humans to decrease the risks of encountering male bears, reducing the odds of infanticide of her cubs by male bears.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anim ... s-breeding
https://www.science.org/content/article ... an-shields

It must be hard to be an animal where the adult male has the instinct to murder the mother's babies, including his own. I wonder why, though? Is it so he can just mate with the mother again and make more cubs?

Yes, that's typically considered to be the primary reason why male bears (and lions) kill the cubs of females. The female will ultimately seek to try again at raising a litter, so the infanticidal male increases his chances of successfully reproducing.

https://www.science.org/content/article ... cubs-lives

That article describes a strategy used by some animals to reduce the risk of infanticide by males. If the females are more promiscuous it causes more uncertainty about parentage, reducing the threat from males because they're more likely to view the young as potentially theirs.

It’s a wonder more bears don’t decide to become nuns.

Well that's brilliant how they've learned to use us in that way

I also read that if a lion joins another pride that already has cubs, he will kill them so he can later replace them with his own. Male lions make terrible stepfathers.

Of course, in The Lion King that should have meant Simba and Nala would have been brother and sister. But what's wrong with a little artistic licensing in a cartoon movie? And it was perfectly acceptable for lions to be singing and speaking English. Also unlike real lions, none of them had naughty parts.

As a kid I just assumed we weren't judging the lions in LK for their sibling-fuckery.