Large carnivores that approach human settlements are usually considered a threat to human property
and safety. The prevailing paradigm, that such ‘problem’ animals approach settlements in search of food,
ignores their social organization. Based on feces, we compared the diet of individual brown bears (Ursus
arctos) in Sweden in relation to settlements. Nutritive quality was quantified using near-infrared
spectroscopy, and food items were identified using a DNA metabarcoding approach. We analyzed the diet
of 21 bears during 36 visits near (600 m from settlements; constituting 95% of bears’ habitat use). The food-search
hypothesis predicted a different and higher-quality diet when an individual was close to settlements than
when in a remote area. Less than 1.9% of the variation in diet was associated with location, giving no support for the food-search hypothesis. However, females with yearlings had 5.1% ± 2.9 (SE) lower fecal protein content than adult males. In addition, females with young (cubs-of-the-year or yearlings) exploited
slaughter remains less often than other bears. This suggests that the diet of predation-vulnerable bears
may have been affected by despotic behavior of dominant conspecifics. We provide evidence against
the paradigm that food search explained the occurrence of brown bears near settlements and suggest that
predation-vulnerable bears may use habitation as a human shield without being food conditioned.
Management authorities should consider this knowledge when dealing with large carnivores near
settlements.