Most likely. Polar bears do it too.
Is it true that polar bears not only will actively stalk human prey, but also are the only animals that will do that? Or is that an Urban Legend?
They absolutely will, but it’s probably because they think it’s a seal standing on its flippers, not because they’re thinking “Oooo, man-meat!”. Anything on the ice is prey to a polar bear.
Polar bears will stalk anything that looks like prey. Including humans. They don’t know that it’s a human they are stalking at all – most polar bears have never seen a human (and vice versa).
As far as the ‘only animals that will do that’, it depends on your definition.
Lions & tigers as a species do not normally stalk humans, but there are examples of individuals called ‘man-killers’ that do deliberately stalk and kill humans.
I have seen a miniature poodle stalking a stranger prowling around outside a house, and when he finally came onto the patio (which she could reach thru her doggie door), she attacked him – and in quite a ‘bloodthirsty’ manner – she definitely drew blood from him! But she wasn’t stalking him for food, she is overly well fed. Does that count as stalking?
I heard a similar story. The circus came to town, and the midget psychic from the sideshow went on a killing rampage. He broke out of jail later that night. The next day, the headline in the local paper screamed, “Short Medium at Large!”
That is scary on so many levels.
I cannot find the original article, but Canoeist fights off bear has always stuck with me.
Somehow related in a Cosmic Way:
Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it, too.
Shouldn’t that be “Small Medium at Large”? 
I think a war journalist is more of an apt metaphor than a soilder. War journalists do go out of their way to go where things are more dangerous. They are seeking out the places where the bombs are actually falling and spend time with some of the most dangerous people on Earth.
When I took a Siberian Ethnology seminar in grad school, there was a whole section on how polar bears were regarded by Siberian people. The polar bear is a powerful cultural icon and there’s quite a mythos built around them. For instance, if someone was attacked by a polar bear, the Chukchi (IIRC) considered them dead even if they survived, and would shun them (the people, that is).
Again, this came from one grad seminar, so take it for what it’s worth.
Interesting logic.
No, just the regular sort.
That reminds me of the guy who escaped from a lunatic asylum and went straight to a laundromat where he had sex with three women and then fled into the night: next morning’s scaremongering headline read NUT SCREWS WASHERS AND BOLTS!.
Yeah, despite the fact that you have done nothing to demonstrate how he was actually, you know, responsible for the deaths of those 2 bears.
He knew as well as anyone what the standard response is when a bear attacks a human. He provoked the attack and the response followed.
It’s easy to see how they might seriously annoy a bear.