Yes, Smokey was a North American Black Bear.

The Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention program began on August 9,1944 and Smokey the cub was found on May 9, 1950 and named after the poster Smokey.

Smokey weighed about 5 pounds.

Smokey was found in an unwanted human caused 17,000 acre forest fire in the Capitan Mountains near Capitan, New Mexico.

Smokey was found by a fire crew from Fort Bliss, Texas with Speed Simmons from the New Mexico Game and Fish Department as the crew boss.

New Mexico Game Warden Ray Bell.

Smokey lived at the National Zoo in Washington D.C.

As a cub, Smokey would bite Game Warden Ray Bell and his son Don, but allowed Ray’s daughter Judy and wife Ruth to care for and feed him. Ray’s theory was that Smokey associated himself and Don with pain because they were the ones that changed Smokey’s bandages. As Smokey became an adult in the National Zoo, he was like most bears and not very gentle.

Smokey lived to be 26 years old.

Smokey died of old age on November 9, 1976.

No. After Little Smokey passed away on August 11, 1990, there were no more Living Symbols in the Zoo.