GOING NATIVE
wildlife even though they probably play an outsized role in the environment,” said Tyler. This societal bias for large, furry creatures has tended to result in more funding and research for charismatic animals like polar bears. Petitions to list species are frequently challenged. According to the petition, pesticide use correlates to bee. Agricultural organizations that use pesticides try to prevent federal protection, and at the state level they recently succeeded in challenging the listing of four bumble bee species under California’s Endangered Species Act. Xerces Society—who was not involved with the American bumble bee petition—said that he wasn’t sure why some are against keeping animals from going extinct. “But farmers and a lot of other people seem to be really opposed to some of these protections, even though bees are helping create their livelihood,” he said. assessment for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN maintains a “Red List” that tracks assessment, which the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition cited, said that the American bumble bee has historically been one of North and Central America’s widest- ranging species. Today, its historic range has contracted by almost 20 percent.
It wasn’t until scientists began suspecting widespread population declines in the 1990s, that they standardized bee sampling techniques. Before then, people recording bee observations were primarily collectors. “They might have been looking for big bees, or rare bees, or colorful bees, or As a result, we don’t understand bees as well as we do other animals. “We’re decades behind our understanding of said. Without adequate evidence pointing to where certain species should be, it’s not possible to write a petition asserting they’ve declined.
is Dr. Leif Richardson, an ecologist and co-author of the book Bumble Bees of North America. He created and manages the largest database of North American bumble bee observations. It was used, at least in part, in the American bumble bee petition and IUCN assessment, and it will likely be reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the agency’s determination. It includes more than 500,000 records from museum collections, educational institutions, and community scientist observations made via online tools such as iNaturalist and Bee Spotter. “It’s the best repository
“Te regions of the U.S. that have the largest usage of pesticides—
in general and neonicotinoids specifically —have also seen the greatest declines in the American bumble bee.” Jesse Tyler, Center for Biological Diversity
Above: This map shows the use of pesticides per square mile and the occurrences of the American bumble bee from historic records (green) and recent sightings (yellow). Reproduced with permission from Reference 5, Hatfield et al.
Above: In his 2015 assessment of the American bumble bee, Rich Hatfield of the Xerces Society estimated the bee’s current range was 19 percent (white) smaller than its historic range (black).
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