I don't know exactly what you mean by "worthy of distinction," but since you quoted me I have to assume you were referring to the players I pointed out.
You have the complete opposite vision that I have of the playerbase's actions and reactions to the beginning of the game. I wasn't thinking of bears or deer. It's cougars that I would guess have the most KO numbers (or at least highest aggro-to-KO ratio) of newer players. I can only speak for myself but I assume it's the same for others. When I was new and had, I don't know, ~ 50 biles or less I had been KO'd by cougars a handful of times by accidently running up on them and never once aggro'd by a bear though I had seen many of them. Bears are easy to see and hear and don't aggro unless you get close to them for an annoying amount of time. Deer is the same that it won't aggro you unless you attack them. You can't outrun a cougar if it aggros you unless, as you say, you can use the terrain to your advantage but there is no guarantee that situation will afford itself.
You're talking about keep track of biles, tempo of the fight, what the animal is doing, access to equipment and tactics. These are all experience things and require enough biles to allow tracking or a tempo. A new player with 30-40 biles that doesn't have weapon skills yet is one or two hit KO by these creatures. In fighting deer for the first few times, a newer player will have broken bones and KO at some point when it takes them 8-10 hits to kill them.
More newb deaths.As far as veteran players taking their mains out for hunting in a permakill situation, look at how the playerbase reacts to a bloodmoon. Anything could happen. Even if you have killed 75,000 deer with one hit each and never been touched by one, your client can crash at the wrong time.
More alts.