[Pollinator] The Bug Guy: Portland insect pro puts creepy crawlies in a positive light

[Scott Black]

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The Bug Guy: Portland insect pro puts creepy crawlies in a positive light

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2008/05/09/this_day/doc4823ab8d567a0617131469.txt
By <mailto:tpaulu at tdn.com>Tom Paulu

For Scott Hoffman Black, there’s one good thing 
about the crash in honeybees ­ the issue has gotten a lot of media buzz.

“The silver lining with the honeybee’s collapse 
disorder is people are starting to realize what 
pollinates their foods,” he said.

Black, 47, is the executive director of the 
Xerces Society, a Portland-based organization 
devoted to conservation of invertebrates (animals 
without backbones) and their habitat.

Last week, in a talk co-sponsored by Lower 
Columbia College and the Willapa Hills Audubon 
Society, Black stressed “how important insects 
are for everything you do. Your life would not be the same without them.”

[]

Scott Hoffman Black stresses the need to protect 
insects during a presentation at Lower Columbia 
College last week. Bill Wagner / The Daily News

Consider the facts:

• Invertebrates contribute to the economy in a 
big way. “Insects alone are worth $57 billion a 
year,” Black said. Of that, a $50-billion-a-year 
recreation industry is based on fish and game 
birds that in turn rely on insects. And insect 
pollination supports $3 billion annually in agricultural crops.

• More than two-thirds of flowering plants 
require insects for pollination. And in a less 
sweet-smelling job, “Insects are the great 
recycler,” he added, decomposing 90 percent of human and animal wastes.

• Out of the more than one million species of 
animals in the world, 94 percent are 
invertebrates. In one 24-mile-square area in 
Oregon, 3,400 different insect species were documented.

They play pivotal roles in nearly every food 
chain. “Ninety-eight percent of birds need 
insects at some point in their life cycle,” Black 
said. Midges are the most important food source 
for juvenile salmon. Even the mighty grizzly bear 
can eat 20,000 cutworm moths a day.

Despite insects’ importance, he acknowledged that 
“some of these species are not very charismatic.

“Everyone has heard of the Bengal tiger,” Black 
said. “Not many people have heard of the Siuslaw 
hairy-necked tiger beetle.” That beetle, which 
once lived along most of the Oregon and 
Washington coasts, is now found at just two sites.

With his lean physique and closely cropped hair, 
the earnest Black fits the stereotype of a 
wrestling coach better than that of a bug chaser. 
He wears a belt with a huge silver buckle ­ and 
does indeed carry an insect net in the back of his Subaru wagon.

Black, a native of Nebraska, worked on oil rigs 
and as a logger before getting degrees in plant 
science, ecology and entomology (the study of 
insects) from Colorado State University. “Insects 
are a passion of mine,” he said.

Since 2000, Black has worked for the Xerces 
Society, which has a staff of 11. The 
organization was started 37 years ago by Robert 
Michael Pyle, a Gray’s River author and 
naturalist. The society is named after the Xerces 
blue, the first butterfly known to go extinct in 
the United States because of human activity.

“We’ll work on anything without a backbone ­ 
except for politicians,” Black quipped.

Build a bee box

These days, Black spends a lot of time talking 
about disappearing honeybees. Since 2006, 
honeybee colonies in the United States have been 
suffering from a widespread phenomenon known as 
colony collapse disorder (CCD), in which adult 
worker bees abandon an otherwise-healthy hive. 
Black said a virus may be to blame; not cell 
phone transmission as one widely disseminated rumor claims.

Honeybees were introduced from Europe and became 
popular for crop pollination because they’re easy 
to transport, he said. But it’s dangerous to rely 
on a single species for pollination, Black pointed out.

One way to partially compensate for the loss of 
honeybees is by helping support the health of the 
4,000 species of native bees in the United States.

[]


Black says a bee house like this one is 
guaranteed to attract bees. <mailto:tpaulu at tdn.com>Tom Paulu / The Daily News

On Sauvie Island, the Xerces Society has been 
involved in planting a hedge row of native plants 
favored by native bees. The different species of 
plants support pollinating bees all summer long.

A simple way to help native bees is to build bee 
houses, which from a distance look like bird 
houses. They’re actually solid blocks of wood 
drilled with several sizes of holes that bees can 
use for nesting. Put one up and within a few 
weeks, you’ll have native bees, Black promised.

“As a homeowner, you can provide habitat for a 
number of invertebrates,” Black said. For one 
thing, “all of us can just say no to pesticides. 
There is no need to use pesticides on your lawn.”

Black said insects are getting more respect than 
in past years. Two weeks from now, he’s scheduled 
to testify before the U.S. House of 
Representatives Natural Resources Committee about the importance of insects.

“Twenty years ago, even wildlife managers 
wouldn’t think about insects,” he said. “Now I 
get invited to Washington, D.C. to talk about insects.”

More information
The Xerces Society publishes a number of free 
books and brochures to help farmers, land 
managers and city dwellers improve habitat for 
native bees and other insects. For more 
information, contact the group: The Xerces 
Society, 4828 S.E. Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland 
OR 97215, (503) 232-6639. <http://www.xerces.org>www.xerces.org



*************************
Scott Hoffman Black
Ecologist/Entomologist
Executive Director
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
4828 SE Hawthorne
Portland, OR 97215
Direct line (503) 449-3792
sblack at xerces.org

The Xerces Society is an international, nonprofit 
organization that protects wildlife through the 
conservation of invertebrates and their habitat.

To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work,
please visit <http://www.xerces.org/>www.xerces.org.


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