Endangered bumblebees need protection

PIERRE – Charlene “Charlie” Bessken led outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers like herself in a virtual tour of South Dakota’s honey bee habitat on Endangered Species Day May 21. The tour, in an online forum, highlighted ways “citizen scientists” can take part in protecting a number of  critters here in the Great Plains from global-scale extinction threats.

South Dakota’s rusty patch bumblebee is the first bee on a list of endangered species that is growing longer, said Bessken, who represents the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Field Office in Pierre. “The number keeps going up instead of down,” she noted, referring to additions made of animals and plants that are vanishing from the landscape. The service listed the bee as endangered in 2017.

The state has 19 of the species that are listed for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The law is the primary legislation to preserve imperiled fauna and flora in the United States.

Worldwide, authorities have recognized for more than five years that contemporary extinction rates are 1,000 times higher than natural background rates, and future rates are likely to be 10,000 times higher.

To slow the exponential increase of biodiversity loss, international negotiators for the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity suggest protecting 30 percent of the planet’s land and ocean water by 2030. The White House under U.S. President Joe Biden bought into this so-called 30×30 target scheme  with Executive Order 14008 on climate justice Jan. 27.

Opposing it, American Stewards of Liberty has garnered support from South Dakota U.S. Sen. John Thune and state Rep. Julie Frye-Mueller for labelling the proposal “a land grab.” As  a result of ASL’s alleged lobbying for legislation opposing the 30×30 plan, the watchdog group Accountable.US recently filed a complaint with the IRS for violation of the group’s tax-exemption status rules.

Nancy Hilding, president of  Prairie Hills Audubon Society, which co-sponsored the virtual tour, said she is “thankful” that Biden issued the order directing federal officials to take charge of 30×30. It is “part of an effort to slow the wildlife extinction crisis and curb global warming,” she told the Native Sun News Today.

Prairie Hills Audubon Society recommends Congress support private landholders, whose role is “critical” in achieving the 30×30 goal of species threat reduction. She advocates “dramatically increasing funding for the Habitat Conservation Plan program of the Ecological Services Division,” where Bessken works. In a March letter to Congressional leaders, dozens of organizations called for a threefold increase in Habitat Conservation Plan funding over the next five years in response to mounting demand.

Supporting the 30×30 initiative nationally is the Center for Biological Diversity. It notes that habitat degradation remains the largest driver of extinction. The United States loses a football-field worth of natural area every 30 seconds to human development, severely affecting wildlife, fresh water, and clean air, it says.

The rusty patch bumblebee is the first bee species listed as endangered in the continental United States. Some 28 percent of bumblebee species are in population slump, and 19 percent of butterflies in the country are categorized as “at risk of extinction,” according to the non-profit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The winged pollinators are especially important for humans to defend because “most of our food is pollinated in some way,” Bessken said. In other words, reduced pollinator populations result in lowered crop yields and can lead to food scarcity. Pollinators are vital for Great Plains grasslands that provide forage to livestock and game, putting meat on the table, she said.

So far, she knows of 22 bumblebee species that frequent South Dakota, North Dakota and Kansas. “They are disappearing, probably due to pesticides, habitat destruction, disease, and herbicides,” she said. Neonicotinoids are an agrochemical infused right into seeds, negatively affecting pollinators as they extract nectar from blossoms, she noted. The Ecological Services Division also blames climate change.

She enlisted participation in a novel bumblebee atlas that the division is compiling. Based on a model developed and funded by the Xerces Society, the atlas will join one completed for Nebraska. It will eventually contribute to an atlas for the entire Great Plains, if all works out, Bessken said.

To date, the division is short on documentation for the South Dakota project, she said. She encouraged “citizen scientists” to “get out there and find some bumblebees so you can add to our iNaturalist page” by submitting photos for identification. She credited Gary Marrone for his Field Guide to Butterflies of South Dakota (2002).

She invited listeners to prop up the waning population of butterflies by planting flowers that sustain them throughout the spring-fall migration season. Particularly good long-season choices are marigolds and zinnias, she noted. She also recommended asters, bee balm (bergamot), and anise (hyssop).

The South Dakota Butterfly Garden holds its annual “Little Wings on the Prairie” festival in 2021 on July 17, she pointed out.  “We have goodies for the kiddies, and we tell adults how to develop a garden,” she said. The event is set for 9 a.m. to noon at the Oahe Downstream Recreation Center, located five miles north of Fort Pierre.

In order to obtain Endangered Species Act protection for perishing animals or plants, any person or group can petition the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Authorities are required to provide a public response. However, the process of listing a species is long and the budget for protective measures is too limited, Bessken and Hilding explained.

In addition to volunteering in community-level efforts on behalf of the birds and bees, constituents also can tell elected officials to expand the resources available to the Fish & Wildlife Service, Hilding said. It needs a budget of at least $592.1 million distributed across five programs starting in FY2022, she said.

More than 1,900 scientists signed a letter originally published in the prestigious journal Science in November 2019, entitled “Solve the biodiversity crisis with funding.”

Sponsoring and promoting yearly Endangered Species Day celebrations for Western South Dakota are Prairie Hills Audubon Society,  Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, the Rapid City Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, the Norbeck Society, Western Watershed Project, and  Black Hills Chapter Dakota Rural Action.

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.net)

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