From the early 1900s through 1940, people in California’s Yosemite National Park used to leave trash out for Bears on purpose. The trash was put into a dump surrounded by bleachers and lights, so park visitors could come watch the “feeding frenzy” as 20 to 30 Bears fought each other for a shot at the food. Even after the feeding shows stopped, Rangers continued leaving food out in order to attract bears and provide photo opportunities for tourists until the early 1970s.
It’s entirely possible that Bears and Yosemite are still passing down human food-based foraging behaviors that their ancestors learned more than a hundred years ago. Bears are social learners and they figure out how to find food by watching their moms foraging while they’re young. So, if Mama Bear has learned that humans are a great source of food, she’ll teach her Cubs that and her daughters will teach their cubs and so on. Even if a bear isn’t taught to forage in trash cans, sometimes they just get creative and figure it out for themselves, which is why we have generations of Bears that are more than just occasional consumers of our garbage and have become reliant on human foods.
It turns out this wasn’t even by accident, because people had been intentionally leaving out food for Bears for generations.