It depends on what they offered us. Like if their fur was soft, sure, people would hunt them. If we could eat their meat and it was delicious, yes, we’d hunt them. If it was a challenge to kill them, they’d be hunted for sport.

We hunt many animals much more harmless than a slapping bear. We hunt fish, for god’s sake.

Well Bears are fucking massive so if they slapped you without claws they still have the ability to break bones and cause other severe injury.

We would never get to see them. Animals who can’t either run away from us or seriously fight back are mostly extinct.

Our ancestors would have consigned them all to the fur trade a couple of centuries ago.

Of course. Human stupidity is limitless, what makes you think we wouldn’t? People would get into unarmed fights with them just for social media points. And as for actually hunting, addressing your question directly, yes, that too. Some people like to shoot about anything that moves. Others might find their fur or different parts useful somehow. And you could possibly find those killing momma bears to sell their cubs as pets in the black market.

I’ve known a couple myself, pretty friendly guys!

In this day and age they would be TikTok stars.

We’ve hunted species to extinction for less. Why would this be any different?

if it slapped me in the face and threw the glove at my feet I would take it as an insult and demand a duel. pistols at dawn.

Have you heard of red pandas or trash pandas?

ask the giant sloth.

Replace slaps with “kicks” and you basically have some Kangaroos which we DO fence away and sometimes kill

there’d be a lot more bear rugs and parkas

I would breed them and unleash them upon the world.

We’d probably try to domesticate them and use them to guard stuff.