I am new to this thread, and was quickly lead off to the darkets of BF places with JDL's reference to the Legend of Sacred Baby Mountain. Couple with the many reports I've read over the last year now--including the OP's--, there is no doubt BF is capable of great harm and malicious activity. On an individual basis, I have to throw my hat in the "foe" ring, though I wish it weren't so.
On a species basis, I think they may very well be the one consideration that saves us, quite literally, from ourselves. I am just a chapter or two into the book, "The Heart of the Monster," which surprisingly enough has nothing to do with BF. As its subtitle reads, the book is about "Why the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies Must Not Become an ExxonMoile Conduit to the Alberta Tar Sands."
Our country is completely run by corporations, and ExxonMobil is the worst of all. They want to use our natural highways (overland river corridors) to transport immense equipment (mindboggling dimensions that would bring all other road traffic to an immediate halt, while subjecting rivers to immense pollution threats should there be accidents) from South Korea to the tar lands, and who knows what extraction goods if it were to be allowed to happen.
My point is simply that these 1,100 miles of mostly pristine river corridors are most certainly the same habitat BF has historically used to get from A to B. I think that if anyone is a BF "whisperer," they would be well served to ask one of our big friends to give themselves up willingly (heck, just stop at your nearest game cam--we got millions of them out there...) and pose for a cameo. Or twenty.
Protecting BF's habitat is to protect ourselves from, well, ourselves. They might quite literally be the biggest friend we have in this world.
I realize this is a bit OT from the OP's question, but I do think we have to look at the bigger picture when asking this question. As an individual, they can be friend or foe. But it's much, much deeper than that.