You don’t see them. You are on the ice and so are they. They hunker down and purposefully cover their nose with their paw when you look in their direction. When you look away, they creep closer until your head starts to turn again. They don’t want you don’t see the little black spot getting closer and closer. If you are lucky and looking around while you are out on the ice, you will see a little black spot disappear. If you do. GET OUT NOW. If the spot was big enough to notice, the bear is probably close enough to charge. I hope your snow machines are close and ready to go.

They are wild animals, but are almost eerily human.

They are incredibly smart and highly emotionally intelligent. Their families are very much like our own human families, and knowledge is passed down through generations. Some families pass down specialized knowledge that puts them on par with hunter-gatherers. I’d put wolves on the short list of intelligent species who could eventually evolve into a species that could be capable of much more, given a long enough timeline where they self-select for intelligence. Same with elephants, ravens, dolphins, chimps, and whales.

Though that would have to exist on a planet where we didn’t kill most of them and wreck the environment.