[Pollinator] Unseen for 13 years, this bee is about to get protection

[David Inouye]

    ENDANGERED SPECIES


  Unseen for 13 years, this bee is about to get protection

Michael Doyle <https://www.eenews.net/staff/Michael_Doyle>, E&E News 
reporter

Published: Monday, October 14, 2019

a Franklin’s bumblebee Photo credit: James P. Strange/USDA-ARS 
Pollinating Insect Research Unit/Wikimedia

The Fish and Wildlife Service has a proposal to protect the Franklin’s 
bumblebee. James P. Strange/USDA-ARS Pollinating Insect Research 
Unit/Wikimedia

A Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to protect the Franklin's bumblebee 
has generated remarkably little buzz, in a sign that the rarely seen 
pollinator will easily alight on the Endangered Species Act list.

With one day left in the public review period, only 28 comments have 
been recorded so far. All appear to support listing the species, which 
hasn't been detected in about 13 years, as endangered.

"I love bees," one anonymous commenter stated, and left it at that.

But while an ESA listing now seems straightforward, some are worried 
about the Fish and Wildlife Service's accompanying decision not to 
designate critical habitat for the bee last found in parts of Oregon and 
California.

"We believe the already reduced number of the species and limited 
geographic area lead to the conclusion that more studies need to be 
completed before making this determination," wrote Rachael Jaffe, a law 
student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Jaffe, who is with the school's Environmental Law Clinic and has a 
master's degree in ecology, added that "by failing to list a habitat for 
the Franklin's bumble bee, this proposed rule undermines the goal of 
listing the species in the first place."

The Franklin's bumblebee has lived in Douglas, Jackson and Josephine 
counties in Oregon, and Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California. 
Whether it still does is an open question.

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the species is "thought to 
have the most limited distribution of all known North American bumble 
bee species ... and one of the most limited geographic distributions of 
any bumble bee in the world."

In 2010, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Robbin 
Thorp, a professor emeritus from the University of California, Davis, 
petitioned FWS to list the species. Though it took nearly a decade, the 
Fish and Wildlife Service eventually proposed to list it last August.

Thorp died in June at the age of 85. He was the last human known to have 
seen a Franklin's bumblebee.

Twenty bees were located in 1999, nine individuals were observed in 2000 
and only three were seen in 2003.

"No Franklin's bumble bees have been found since the last sighting of a 
single individual in Oregon in 2006," the agency noted, adding that 
"Franklin's bumble bee populations could potentially persist undetected."

FWS cited the example of the Fender's blue butterfly in Oregon, which 
was believed extinct after the last recorded observation in 1937, until 
it was rediscovered in 1989.

Pesticide use was "likely a factor in the decline of the Franklin's 
bumble bee," the Fish and Wildlife Service reported, and pathogens and 
other stressors have also contributed (/E&E News PM/ 
<https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060121799/>, Feb. 21).

Habitat, though, may be plentiful.

"Because habitat for the [species] is not limiting, and because the bee 
is considered to be flexible with regards to its habitat, the 
availability of habitat does not limit the conservation of the 
Franklin's bumble bee now, nor will it in the foreseeable future," FWS said.

As a result, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined it was "not 
prudent" to undertake the customary step of designating critical habitat.

Critical habitat includes areas with physical or biological features 
"essential to the conservation of the species." Under the law, FWS is 
required "to the maximum extent prudent and determinable" to designate 
critical habitat for a species upon its listing.

Twitter: @MichaelDoyle10 <https://twitter.com/MichaelDoyle10>


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