If I were in the friend’s position I doubt I would have gotten a close enough look to differentiate. The autopsy said the victim had “multiple chop wounds” including to the skull so it was probably a machete or ax attack. With lots of long deep wounds and blood there wasn’t much chance he was alive when the friend found him so it’s plausible that the friend didn’t actually go into the campsite, just saw the blood and assumed it was a bear because what other animal could do that much damage.
$100k is about the average household income in the US, the average single income is about $67k. So about a year and a half of the average wage. And median income is much lower (median household income is about $44k) indicating that high income households have a much larger effect on the average than low income households so the average middle class individual income should also be much lower than the average individual income.