| By Bill Freese, Science Director, Center for Food Safety – January 23, 2025 We need your voice! Right now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is finalizing its proposal to protect critical habitat of the rusty patched bumble bee, the first bumble bee in the continental U.S. to receive Endangered Species Act protections. Unfortunately, FWS’s proposal does not go far enough. If we want this endangered pollinator to get the protections it deserves so it can make a recovery, we need to make sure the FWS hears us loud and clear. Can you submit a comment to FWS today urging a stronger proposal and swift designation of critical habitat for this humble bumble bee? The bee, which was once a common sight in the northeastern and midwestern United States, has now largely vanished from 90% of its historical range. Like most pollinators, its remaining populations are threatened by habitat loss, pesticide use, parasites, and disease. When the rusty patched bumble bee was first listed as an endangered species in 2017, the agency failed to designate protected critical habitat for the pollinator. This crucial step of designating critical habitat is vital to the recovery of a species as it helps ensure that remnant populations have safe places to reproduce and thrive — species without designated critical habitat are only half as likely to start their path to recovery as species with it. Tell FWS: Protect the rusty patched bumble bee! |
| Now, FWS is finally proposing to designate critical habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee – and that’s where you come in! Unfortunately, we don’t think this proposal goes far enough to set the bumble bee on the path to recovery. FWS’s proposal includes mostly urban/suburban land, and excludes agricultural areas. However, it is essential that some farmland also be included as critical habitat because flowering plants growing along field edges provide essential nectar and pollen to support the bumble bee. FWS should preferentially select land for critical habitat that grows crops with less pesticide use (e.g. hay fields), without bee colonies used for pollination services that can spread disease, and that is situated so as to connect different populations to foster genetic diversity. We need all hands on deck to urge FWS to finalize a stronger critical habitat designation that allows these humble bumble bees to start their path to recovery. We simply can’t afford to lose another pollinator. Can you submit a comment to FWS today? We’ve already written it for you! |
Here at Center for Food Safety, we’re fighting every day to protect our precious pollinators. Our lawsuits have forced EPA to address the harms of multiple toxic insecticides to endangered pollinators like the rusty patched bumble bee and Dakota skipper. We also secured threatened species status for the Monarch butterfly, and passed the first hurdle on the road to obtaining protection of the endangered Iowa skipper butterfly.
Thank you for standing with us.
