Endangered bee doesn’t warrant more protection
The battle over the bee continues.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Monday that designating “critical habitat” is not warranted for the endangered rusty patched bumblebee.
This designation would have been extra layer of protection for the bee, on top of its already endangered status.
The USFWS said the bee could survive without having specific areas managed for its protection. According to the agency, biologists have concluded that habitat loss is not the biggest reason for the bee’s decline. Additional factors include disease and climate change.
An environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, decried the decision: “By refusing to designate critical habitat for the rusty patched bumblebee, the Fish and Wildlife Service is blatantly ignoring threats like habitat loss, pesticides and pathogens that are driving this species to extinction,” said Tara Cornelisse, an entomologist at the Center.
“This decision weakens the bee’s protection under the Endangered Species Act and will hamper its recovery,” she said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said the designation of “critical habitat” wasn’t necessary: “The designation of critical habitat plays a very specific role in species recovery and is prudent when a species’ recovery is dependent on specific habitat elements it needs to survive,” said Lori Nordstrom, assistant regional director for ecological services in the service’s Great Lakes region.
“As a habitat generalist, the rusty patched bumblebee can find the habitat it needs in a variety of ecosystems, including prairies, woodlands, marshes, agricultural landscapes and residential parks and gardens, all of which are abundant across the bee’s range,” she said.
The rusty patched bumblebee was listed as endangered in 2017, the first bee in the continental U.S. ever to make the endangered species list.