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Teddy Roosevelt, the Bear, and a Silver Spoon

KEDM Public Radio | By Kelby Ouchley

Published February 22, 2016 at 9:00 AM EST

President Theodore Roosevelt was frustrated when he arrived in East Carroll Parish in October 1907. An avid hunter, he had long desired to kill a black bear on a traditional southern hunt with baying hounds and moss-draped swamps as a backdrop. His first effort in Sharkey County, Mississippi five years earlier had been unsuccessful except for spawning the iconic Teddy Bear stuffed toys when he refused to shoot a young bear that had been tied to a tree by his hunting guide.

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Kelby Ouchley

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.

See stories by Kelby Ouchley