A friend alerted us to Greg Stanley's article in the Star Tribune, In push to save Minnesota's state bee, regulators and environmental groups disagree over habitat protections:
When the bald eagle became an endangered species, the chemical that was killing it was banned. When federal officials added the gray wolf to the list, they outlawed hunting wolves. But what happens when the endangered species is something as small as the rusty patched bumblebee?
The yearslong fight over how to save the bees from extinction after their sudden and massive die-off now centers on habitat — how much the bees need and whether it should be subject to special rules. How the battle between regulators and environmental groups plays out could set the standard for how federal protections are applied to other bees, butterflies and important pollinators that are well on their way to becoming endangered.
While the bees named for their rust-colored coats have lost some of the flowers, grasses and trees they need to survive to housing developments and more intensive agriculture, they haven't lost enough over the last 20 years to explain why about 90% of them have died.
Because the amount of available habitat hasn't changed much since the late 1990s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided this fall that it will not designate "critical habitat" for the bees, which would have provided them an extra layer of protection.
Several national and local environmental groups decried the move, saying that managing specific areas and keeping certain places free from pesticides are the only ways to stabilize the population.
Three of those environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of Minnesota Scientific and Natural Areas, recently filed an intent to sue Fish and Wildlife, a required step under the Endangered Species Act to give the federal agency 60-day notice before going to court.
The agency drew a false distinction between habitat loss and other threats that are killing the bee, said Lucas Rhoads, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"One of the threats is disease and parasites, but we know the only way their immune systems can stay strong enough to fight off those diseases and parasites is if they have high quality habitat with flowering plants free from pesticides to get the best nutrition," he said. "For Fish and Wildlife to just throw up their hands and say that more habitat isn't going to help doesn't make sense." . . .
Read the rest at the Star Tribune. The Fish and Wildlife Service officials didn't return the reporter's phone calls for comment.
We checked out a December 16, 2020 press release at the Center For Biological Diversity about the lawsuit, Lawsuit Launched to Protect Habitat for Critically Endangered Rusty Patched Bumblebee:
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of Minnesota Scientific and Natural Areas today issued a formal notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for refusing to designate critical habitat for the highly endangered rusty patched bumblebee.
Despite the bee’s disappearance from 87% of its native range, the Service announced in September that designating critical habitat for the species was “not prudent,” claiming that availability of habitat does not limit the bee’s conservation. The decision contradicted the agency’s own findings that habitat loss and degradation have contributed to the bee’s decline, worsened by the widespread use of insecticides and herbicides that directly kill the bee and the wildflowers it needs to survive.
“We have no other option but to take action against this administration for its failure to designate habitat for the rusty patched bumblebee," said Lucas Rhoads, staff attorney for the Pollinator Initiative at NRDC. “The Service’s excuses for failing to protect the bee’s home have no basis in either the agency’s own science or the law. This species can recover from its devastating decline only if we use every tool at our disposal to protect the bee and its habitat.”
The rusty patched bumblebee was once common in the Midwest and the Northeast but was protected as endangered in 2017. In addition to habitat loss and degradation, climate change and disease have also contributed to its decline.
“The Service’s refusal to provide the habitat protections this gravely imperiled bee so desperately needs is a betrayal of its mission to protect endangered species,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center. “This beautiful bumblebee was once common across much of the country. But if we don’t protect the places where it breeds and feeds it will continue on its path toward extinction.”
“In 2019, the rusty patched bumblebee was declared by the legislature as Minnesota’s ‘official bee,’” said Tom Casey, board chair of Friends of Minnesota Scientific and Natural Areas. “We need to do everything we can to preserve and enhance habitat for this endangered pollinator.”
Background
The rusty patched bumblebee was protected under the Endangered Species Act in January 2017 after a petition from the Xerces Society followed by a lawsuit by NRDC. The Service then failed to designate critical habitat by the statutory deadline, prompting another lawsuit by NRDC in 2019. A legal settlement with NRDC required the agency to move forward with a critical habitat determination in summer of 2020.
The decline of the rusty patched bumblebee is part of a troubling trend of declines in many of the 4,000-plus species of native bees in the United States.
Native bees often provide more effective pollination of native plants than honeybees, which are not native to the United States. Wild pollinator declines across North America are caused by habitat loss, agricultural intensification, pesticide use, invasive non-native species, climate change and pathogens.
About 90% of wild plants and 75% of leading global food crops — including 35% of the global food supply — depend on animal pollinators for reproduction, and the great majority of that work is done by bees.
Despite the growing evidence of declining bee populations, the rusty patched bumblebee is the only bee in the continental United States currently protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Chicago; Bozeman, Montana; and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC
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