Hey! Welcome to the Joe Rogan Experience! What's on your mind today?

Bears, man, they're some enigmatic creatures. People have these deep emotional connections with them - what my buddy Steve Ranella terms as charismatic megafauna. We see them as these cuddly creatures from our childhood teddy bears and cartoons like Yogi, but the reality? It's complex. They're wild animals and they can be dangerous.

Now, I don't have any issues with people hunting bears, provided they do it in a respectful and ethical manner. I even see it as a necessary task in certain areas. Places like Alberta, Canada, they're teeming with bears, and hunting becomes part of the balance. It's a relationship born out of necessities between the hunters and these magnificent beasts.

Then you got these Instagram guys with pet bears, cuddling with them. But trust me, there'll come a day when the video takes a dark turn because at the end of the day, a bear is a wild animal. If you had a thousand of them roaming around in your neighborhood, you'd see the need to thin out the herd pretty quickly.

The whole situation is super complex and it's not something you can truly grasp from the comfort of your home. And hey, don't get me started on bear selfies - people are getting themselves into all sorts of trouble trying to snap a photo with a wild bear. It's just not a smart move. So yeah, I appreciate bears as awesome animals, but it's crucial to understand they're not just oversized teddies.