I dipped my hand into a creek to take a drink of water. As I was drinking, I thought I heard something on a hill 15 yards away; I slowly lifted my head to see what it was. As I raised my eyes, they focused on the source of the noise: a 250-pound black bear, who was gracefully sauntering along an old logging road. The sun shone beautifully on her glossy skin. My first reaction was not one of fear, but of admiration.

My hypnotic trance ceased when I noticed the two shapes running along behind her—two cubs. This is when the fear started to set in a little bit because I realized all three animals were making their way toward me. The two cubs trotted out in front of their mother and started wrestling with one another. I glanced up at the mother, who was sniffing the air. She had my scent. Her head turned to where I was kneeling in the creek. She glared at me, and I foolishly gazed back. She broke the stare and continued on her way down the old logging road with her youngsters following close behind.

I often share this story with people who have the misconception that all bears are out to get them. Over the years, bears have received a bad reputation for mangling and sometimes killing humans. Yes, they do sometimes hurt or kill people, but fewer than one fatal attack occurs each year on average. Deer kill much more than that, about 130 people a year, and you don’t ever hear of people cowering in fear from a deer.

Bear attacks, both fatal and nonfatal, are generally out of defense. For instance, if that bear had attacked me that memorable day in October, I would not have blamed the bear. You might think I’m crazy, but in my mind, the hypothetical attack would have been my fault for not being more observant. She would have been protecting her young. And who could blame her for doing such a thing?

Humans have strapped bears with a bad reputation, a reputation based on fiction. It is literature and films such as the movie Grizzly Man that cause us to believe that bears are man-eaters. The other cause of such fear is a bear’s potential to cause harm. Most things have that same potential, but we don’t lose sleep over them.

Bears are truly just as scared of us as most of us are of them. I have had more bears run away from me than run at me. I remember back in June a few summers ago, when I was topping a ridge and came across a bear. As soon as I reached the peak of the ridge, the bear bolted as far away from me as it could get even though I’d done nothing to scare it off. I was just walking in the woods.

Mankind’s incorrect perception of bears have led to mountains of disrespect from people who don’t understand them, but bears truly are amazing animals once you get to know them or at least get to know them from a far. Respect for them from humans is long overdue.