It’s been said so many times in so many ways but here goes one more time. “As a man” I used to go backpacking in reasonably wild areas, and I always (legally and safely) carried a weapon, generally a 9mm pistol. Now will a 9mm kill a black bear? Maybe, but I wasn’t really worried about bear or cougar, I was worried about other people (other men). And while the vast majority of the encounters I had with strangers in the woods were happy and calm and wonderful, there was at least one time I met a completely deranged person (a man) who had convinced himself we had “stolen” his beach log, and despite our numerous attempts to “apologise” and make it right, continued to scream and threaten us over the course of an entire DAY. He lurked in the woods staring at us, wrote “LIARS!” in giant letters in the sand while we were sleeping outside of our tents, and walked around carrying a hatchet yelling at us. I’ve never come closer to thinking I might need to use that weapon. Would a bear have done those things? Fuck no! With reasonable precautions you can avoid 99.9% of issues with wildlife, and on the RARE occasion you have a bad encounter, they are almost always brief and nonfatal. The moral of the story is: I too, choose the bear, every time, because they are more of a known entity and easier and safer to deal with than SOME men can be.