In a victory for conservationists, the rusty patched bumble bee was officially added to the U.S. Endangered Species List yesterday, March 21. The listing was originally scheduled for February 10, but was delayed when the Trump administration froze all regulations from the Obama administration that had not taken effect as of January 20.
Ominously, the listing was to be subject to further review — as if over a decade of research documenting its decline, followed by three years of evaluation by Fish & Wildlife Service, had not been sufficient. No one disputes that the rusty patched bumble bee has disappeared from nearly 90% of its historic range, which spanned 28 states from the Dakotas to the Atlantic and into Canada. It was listed under the Canadian equivalent of the Endangered Species Act in 2010, and recognized as “critically endangered” by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the premier global listing agency for imperiled species), in 2014.
Anticipating a fight, on February 14 the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Trump administration in federal court. The complaint argued that freezing the listing was illegal because the listing decision was made final when posted in the Federal Register in early January, and because no public notice or review of the postponement was allowed.
Sure enough, in March,
Six business organizations petitioned the government earlier this month to push back the effective date to Jan. 11, 2018. The groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Home Builders, said the Obama administration had acted hastily without adequately considering how the designation would affect human activities and with too little information about the bee's underground nesting and hibernation sites.
"Once the listing decision takes effect, virtually every industry operating within the species' range — from agriculture and crop production to residential and commercial development, from energy production and distribution to manufacturing, will be profoundly affected," the petition said.
This petition may have failed because it was riddled with falsehoods. There was no hasty action by the Obama administration; as mentioned above, years of research and official review preceded the decision to list. Indeed, the Service dragged its feet for so long that the Xerxes Society (an invertebrate conservation group) and the NRDC filed a petition in 2014 to speed up the process, lest the bumble bee go extinct first. The listing process requires an exhaustive review of the biology of a candidate species; the nesting and overwintering habitats of the rusty patched bumble bee are well understood (pdf warning). And contrary to what this statement (which is pretty much boilerplate opposition rhetoric for any endangered species listing) suggests, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works closely with agriculture and industry to develop species recovery plans that take into account such concerns. Compromises are made. And development is seldom impeded. Defenders of Wildlife cites a study (pdf) of over 400,000 development projects screened for conflict with the Endangered Species Act between 1998 and 2004: only 1% were delayed in any way, and all but one of those eventually went forward.
Inevitably, some stakeholders will be unable to maximize their profits, as is the nature of compromise. Yet there are economic advantages to conserving pollinators that these business interests choose to ignore. Native insect species contribute some $3 billion to the U.S. economy in terms of pollination services to crops, according to conservative estimates (pdf warning). The rusty patched bumblebee itself is an excellent pollinator of cranberries (pdf warning), and contributes to the pollination of plums and apples, as well as dozens of native wildflowers.
Protecting the rusty patched bumble bee helps protect other native bees that share some of the same habitats — species that are thought to be in danger, but about which not enough is yet known to meet the Fish and Wildlife Service’s high standards for listing. According to the Xerxes Society, as many as 1/4 of the 46 bumble bee species in North America are in decline, some seriously. Like the rusty patched bumble bee, they are threatened by habitat loss, pesticide use, displacement of native wildflowers by weeds, diseases spread by commercially raised bees, and climate change.
The postponement of the rusty patched bumble bee’s listing was alarming given the current hostile climate for conservation. The Endangered Species Act is in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. Oklahoma Senator James "Snowball" Inhofe, whose recent accomplishments include stacking the EPA with climate-change deniers, is among those who seem particularly aggrieved that the Act continues to exist. Most observers consider it unlikely that the Act will be done away with entirely. The great danger is that it will be weakened — to the point where it no longer functions. Legislation to that effect has already been proposed by House Republicans.
It will be interesting to see how endangered species listing applications now in the pipeline will fare under the new administration.
If you are interested in bee conservation, check out this citizen science project: Bumble Bee Watch collects information on bumble bee sightings (mostly in the form of photos uploaded by participants) to keep track of the dozens of bumble bee species found across the U.S. and Canada. The website also provides many good resources on bumble bee biology and conservation.
For now — congratulations to the National Research Defense Council, the Xerces Society, and all of the biologists who worked for years on behalf of the rusty patched bumble bee!
And keep up the fight.