# Jon Mooallem: The strange story of the teddy bear, and what it reveals about our relationship to animals

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt legendarily spared the life of a black bear -- and prompted a plush toy craze for so-called "teddy bears." Writer Jon Mooallem digs into this story and asks us to consider how the tales we tell about wild animals have real consequences for a species' chance of survival -- and the natural world at large.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2014
- Runtime: 14 min
- By: TED.com
- Genres: Education, Nature
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/JonMooallem_2014)
- Licence or status: [CC BY-NC-ND 3.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) (as the archive states it)
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/JonMooallem_2014?play=1)