[Spectrum R3] 7. Smokey the Bear - Hojin

Smokey the Bear - Hojin.m4a

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Smokey the Bear

Smokey the Bear’s story doesn’t start with a bear. It starts with a problem, a solution, and then a drawing. 

In the 1940s, during World War II, the leaders of the United States had
a problem. They were worried about having enough wood to build ships and other equipment for the war.

The solution: To protect America’s forests (and the wood that might
be needed for ships), the U.S. Forest Service started a campaign to prevent forest fires.

The Forest Service created posters reminding people about fire safety. The posters featured a deer named Bambi from a popular movie. Before long, however, the poster images were switched to a popular toy animal—a bear. An illustrator, Albert Staehle, drew that first bear with a park ranger’s hat in 1944 and named him Smokey.

Six years later, while fighting a forest fire in New Mexico, firefighters found a black bear cub clinging to a tree. They rescued the cub and called it Hotfoot. Soon, however, the cub was renamed Smokey after the drawings on the posters.

Once he recovered from his injuries, Smokey was taken to the National
Zoo in Washington, D.C. Thousands of people visited him there until he died in 1976. Smokey was 26 years old. His message is still with us, however, as we see him reminding us to prevent forest fires all across the nation.