Louisiana Wildlife Commission sets stage to create hunting season for iconic 'Teddy' bear

Louisiana is setting the stage for a black bear hunting session as soon as next year after a resurgence in a population that had all but disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Louisiana Wildlife Commission likely will vote in November to create a bear season after hearing a briefing on the current population at its meeting Thursday.

"We can certainly have a conservative harvest in limited areas," said John Hanks, manager of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries large carnivore program.

Louisiana's iconic black bear, the original "Teddy bear," was removed from the endangered species list in 2015, although there is an ongoing lawsuit challenging the removal.

Today the Louisiana black bear population is 1,212, although that only includes numbers from the state's largest bear populations along the Mississippi Delta and in the Atchafalaya Basin. The largest population is in the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge.

"There are bears all over the state," Hanks said. "This (number) is not all of the bears we have; it's all of the bears we have censused."

Hanks said the current estimate is probably 80% to 90% of the bear population.

Among those who testified in favor of a season were Republican state Sen. Stewart Cathey of Monroe, who had planned to run a bill last spring creating a bear season but shelved it in favor of the commission's plan, and Richard Kennedy of the Safari Club International.

"Clearly we have a strong bear population," Kennedy said. "We're in support of anything that moves forward a season." 

Louisiana's fabled black bear became part of American culture in 1902 after President Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot one that had been trapped and tied to a tree by members of his hunting party.

The episode was featured in a cartoon in The Washington Post, sparking the idea for a Brooklyn candy-store owner to create the "Teddy" bear.

Today black bears roam the deep woods of the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge, Upper Atchafalaya Basin and other connecting corridors such as Three Rivers Wildlife Management Area, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The bear's Louisiana recovery was celebrated in 2015 during an event at the Governor's Mansion that Theodore Roosevelt IV attended and the following year during a ceremony at the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge that then U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewel attended.

"I like to think this is partially a result of one of the greatest hunting stories in American history," Roosevelt told USA Today Network in 2015.

But a 2018 lawsuit led by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) with co-counsel Atchafalaya Basinkeeper said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service used "false assumptions and shoddy science" to make its decision for removal.

It contends the bears still need the protection of the Endangered Species Act, saying the recovery corridors don't connect true native populations, a requirement for delisting, and that the estimated population is inflated.

“The Louisiana black bear is a victim of biological malpractice,” PEER officials have said.

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Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.