>>341631Bears do it when they have nothing to fight for, i.e. a full bear with nothing better to do comes too close to a budger, gets screamed at, and runs away. Running away is what all animals do when they want to avoid troubles. In nature, fights are not started if there is no reason for a fight. A bear with no cubs and a belly full of raspberies would run even from an angry squerel.
A bear is not a big cat either, so it doesnt have a playfulness of a cat - in its natural setting a tiger having nothing better to do often plays with humans by pursuing them for miles, approaching from different sides, catching up and then letting go, making aperson to climb on the tree and waiting for him to go down just to chase him on the tree again.
What I am getting at, a bear that ran away from a budger or even a squerel is not coward, it just had nothing to obtain from confrontation with smaller animal, and due to its bear nature did not feel like playing around.