NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The Louisiana black bear, the animal behind the “teddy’s bear” inspired by President Theodore Roosevelt, has rebounded enough to pull it off the list of federally protected species, the government says.
U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell heralded the “recovery of a species” Thursday, though groups that have worked for decades to protect the bears disagreed or had doubts.
The black bear, which once roamed Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, is now found in two parts of eastern Louisiana and in one place along the coast. Its removal from the federal list means the state will now take over work to protect it.
Jewell spoke at the Tallulah office of the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge, where Louisiana’s biggest black bear population is found. Reporters elsewhere listened by phone as she described how Roosevelt’s refusal to shoot a tied-up Louisiana black bear for a hunt trophy in 1902 inspired teddy bears.
Jewell said she got to hold a rescued 7-week-old cub that morning.