FILE - In this May 17, 2015, file photo, a Louisiana Black Bear, sub-species of the black bear that is protected under the Endangered Species Act, sits in a water oak tree in Marksville, La. U.S. Interior... (Associated Press) 
 
 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. 
 
 "The work's not over," she said. "The work's really just beginning to bring back more of these hardwoods so Louisiana can help enjoy the kinds of animals that Teddy Roosevelt saw when he was here at the turn of the century." 
 
 Michael J. Robinson, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said one of the groups being counted as Louisiana black bears may not be that subspecies at all, but descendants of black bears imported from Minnesota in the 1960s. 
 
 The group was initially excited by the bear's progress but more recently became aware of a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist's opposition because the upper Atchafalaya Basin area northwest of Baton Rouge, where the smaller eastern group is found, had no black bears until the Minnesota bears were brought in. 
 
 "Rather than contributing to the black bear population, they threaten to hybridize it," and probably should be sterilized or moved back to Minnesota, Robinson said. 
 
 Deborah Fuller, a federal biologist based in Louisiana, said the most recent genetic study indicates "the upper Atachafalaya bear comes out as its own thing. Not as Minnesota," though it may have Minnesota genes. 
 
 Local Sierra Club chairman Harold Schoeffler, who sued in 1987 to get the bears listed, said he will be talking on Friday with an attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, which handled the earlier lawsuit. 
 
 However, Defenders of Wildlife spokeswoman Cindy Hoffman said in an email that the group was not involved. 
 
 Schoeffler said he thinks there just aren't enough bears to consider recovered. He estimated numbers around 700. 
 
 The estimated total was once below 100. Schoeffler said it was 300 to 350 when he went to court in 1987. 
 
 A years-long DNA census released in 2014 estimated the number at 350 to 600 north of Interstate 10 in Louisiana. Those south of U.S. 90 in south-central Louisiana — the "lower Atchafalaya basin" have not yet been counted. 
 
 "When we delisted alligators, we probably had 50,000. When we delisted pelicans, we had 28,000 or 30,000," he said. 
 
 Fuller said new research indicates there may be nearly 700 bears just in northeast Louisiana. And, while numbers are important, so is whether they can thrive. Biologists think that answer is yes, she said. 
 
 Paul Davidson, executive director of the Black Bear Conservation Coalition, said one of the recovery plan's required objectives — creating a corridor between the two populations above Interstate 10 — has not been met because forests don't link the areas where they live. 
 
 University of Tennessee biologists said genetics show there is such a corridor, since some bears from those groups have mated. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Online: 
 
 http://www.fws.gov/southeast/wildlife/mammal/louisiana-black-bear/ 
 
 http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/louisiana-black-bear-status-range 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt Association about teddy bears: http://bit.ly/1oWpyrl ||||| After decades of recovery, the Louisiana black bear – the furry beast that inspired the creation of teddy bears – is now officially off the lists for threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. 
 
 The US Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell attributed the good news to partnerships with private landowners and their work to preserve forestland vital to the survival of the bears during her announcement at the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Louisiana, in the heart of black bear territory. She was there to “to celebrate a successful conservation partnership to protect and recover the Louisiana black bear from the brink of extinction," the department said. 
 
 Landowners as well as state and federal agencies, nonprofits, and universities all played a part in the bears’ population recovery, according to US Fish and Wildlife Services. Aggressive restoration programs and new regulations helped mitigate habitat loss enough to enable the iconic bear's population to rebound. 
 
 Similar efforts, on the part of both regulatory bodies and individuals, have helped restore habitats for numerous birds, mammals, and other creatures that once faced grave risk. 
 
 “There is a rewilding of America going on, which is extraordinarily heartening,” says Andrew Wetzler, the director of the Land and Wildlife Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Monitor last May, when FWS began the process of de-listing the bear. 
 
 The Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson reported at the time: 
 
 A potent combination of collaborative wildlife management techniques, cultural shifts in how Americans view large birds and mammals, the tenacity of the species themselves, and a cleaner overall environment have resulted in a record number of species being taken off the endangered species list in the Obama era, even as lawmakers start coming to terms with what it means to manage a country where raw, fanged wilderness now sniffs and grunts at the city limit.” 
 
 There are now between 500 and 750 Louisiana black bears in the United States, FWS says on its website – twice the population size two decades ago. 
 
 But estimates vary. Former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said the total was about 1,000 last May. A DNA census report released in 2014 projected the number to be between 350 and 600 in the region north of Interstate 10 in Louisiana. Those to the South have yet to be counted. 
 
 Some conservation experts say it may be too early to celebrate, and that the black bears still need federal protection. 
 
 The Center for Biological Diversity, for instance, says it’s skeptical that the bear is entirely ready for “delisting.” A spokesman said the group will be looking into the specific qualifications. 
 
 The local Sierra Club chairman Harold Schoeffler also casts doubt on whether the Louisiana Black Bear should be off the list. He said he's ready to sue if the bears are taken off. Mr. Schoeffler was the one who went to court in 1987 and attained protection for the bears under the Endangered Species Act. 
 
 Back then, he said, the population was 300 to 350. At one point, their numbers were down to 100. 
 
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 "I think the important point is that we've done very little to re-establish the bear in places where they traditionally resided,” he added, such as forests in western Mississippi and the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. 
 
 This report contains material from the Associated Press. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Foster Campbell on Thursday picked up the endorsements of the Sierra Club and 22 of Louisiana’s best known en…
– After decades of barely clinging on as a species, the bear that inspired teddy bears has bounced back. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced on Thursday that the Louisiana black bear—which appeared in the famous "Teddy's bear" political cartoon after Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a tied-up one in 1902—has been taken off both the threatened and endangered species list after a population increase from as few as 80 in 1959 to up to 750 today, the Christian Science Monitor reports. In what authorities say should serve as an example to other areas, the bear rebounded with the help of habitat restoration and wildlife corridors that connected different populations of the bear subspecies, which once ranged all the way from eastern Texas to eastern Mississippi. Jewell praised the "recovery of a species," though the AP notes that some groups think the move is premature. "The work's not over," Jewell told reporters. "The work's really just beginning to bring back more of these hardwoods so Louisiana can help enjoy the kinds of animals that Teddy Roosevelt saw when he was here at the turn of the century." There hasn't been a legal bear hunt in the state since 1988, and the New Orleans Advocate reports that state authorities, who will now take over work to protect the species, say it's far too early to talk about holding one now. (This has also been a great month for grizzly bears.)