BATON ROUGE - U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says the bear that inspired teddy bears is coming off the list of threatened species. She said partnerships with private landowners helped bring back the kind of forests the bear needs.

She spoke Thursday at the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge, which is at the heart of the Louisiana black bear's domain. Reporters elsewhere were able to listen in by telephone.

Some of the people who've been working for decades to bring back the subspecies say it still needs protection.

And the Center for Biological Diversity, a national group to protect endangered subspecies, says it has doubts about whether the bear's ready for "delisting." Conservation advocate Michael Robinson says the group will be filing a Freedom of Information request.