Proposal to protect threatened bumblebee includes swath of Johnson County

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to designate more than a million acres of critical habitat — over 45,000 acres of them in Johnson County — for the endangered rusty patched bumblebee.

The 1.6 million acres across six states proposed for the designation, mostly on private land within urban areas, are what the service says are critical to the bee’s survival.

Kraig McPeek, project leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Illinois-Iowa Ecological Services Field Office, said in order for an area to make the list for the proposal, there had to be at least 50 documented sightings of the rusty patched by experts since 2007.

That threshold “indicated a persistence of the bee in those areas,” McPeek said.

In October, an underground nest for the bumblebee was discovered outside a house in Iowa City — the first time a rusty patched nest was found in Iowa since at least 2017.

The proposed area in Johnson County is mostly on the northeast side of the county, with almost all the land east of Interstate 380 and Highway 218 — reaching up to parts of Lake Macbride State Park and down to Iowa City. The area also includes most of the Coralville Lake and the cities of Coralville and University Heights.

Of the 45,902 acres in Johnson County, the land breakdown includes:

What the designation means

The proposed habitat designation comes as the rusty patched bumblebee population, once known to occur broadly across the United States and parts of Canada, has been declining steadily.

In 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service declared the rusty patched bumblebee — distinguished by a patch of rusty-orange hair on its abdomen and a fuzzy patch of black on its upper back — an endangered species. But at the time, the service did not designate any critical habitat areas for the bee — saying, in part, that the bumblebee faced stressors other than loss of habit in its decline, including “pesticides and pathogens.”

Environmental groups sued over the service’s lack of declaring critical habitat for the rusty patched. In a settlement, the service now is proposing these critical habitat sites across 33 counties in six states. Besides Iowa, the other states are Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

“This is a really important and exciting development because we can’t make sure rusty patched bumblebees will survive and recover unless we protect the places they live,” said a statement from Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity — one of the groups that sued over the issue. “These once common bumblebees are now increasingly rare. They deserve the full scope of protections they’re entitled to under the Endangered Species Act, which says extinction is not an option. We’re going to fight to make sure this is what they get.”

A designated critical habitat identifies specific areas essential for the survival and recovery of a threatened or endangered species. It acts as a “marker” to ensure federal agencies take precautions to avoid damaging those areas to aid conservation efforts.

McPeek said the designation would not stop development on the land. He said the designation would not create a “sanctuary” for the bees, nor a wildlife refuge.

“This designation does not impact private landowner rights or private actions at all,” McPeek said.

“Rather, designation requires that, where a landowner requests Federal agency funding or authorization for an action that may affect an area designated as critical habitat, the Federal agency consult with the Service,” according to a notice posted by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Activities that involve needing a federal permit, license or funding and are likely to destroy or negatively modify critical habitat would be affected.

The Fish and Wildlife Service developed an online tool at ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/table/critical-habitat.ht for users to see if their land is within the designated areas in the proposal.

Why is the rusty patched endangered?

Experts say there are multiple reasons behind the bumblebee’s population decline, but some reasons include the loss of natural habitat and the variety of flowers the species feeds on; diseases spread by commercially raised and exotic bees; and the use of pesticides.

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Amy Toth, a professor and chair of the graduate program in ecology and evolutionary biology at Iowa State University, said rusty patched bumblebee numbers have declined by 80 percent.

In August 2023 reporting in The Gazette’s Nature’s Alarm series, Toth previously called the species a “poster child” for understanding bee and pollinator declines.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said urban and suburban areas included in its proposal are important to the rusty patched bumblebee — or Bombus affinis — because they include some of the biological features essential for the conservation of the species.

These areas include “upland forest interior for overwintering; forest edge and other areas with existing cavities for nesting; diverse and abundant native floral resources for foraging; and well-drained loose soils for nesting and overwintering” according to the service.

“Residents, businesses and communities in urban and suburban areas can provide habitat for all pollinators, not just rusty patched bumblebee. Add flowers that bloom in different seasons to gardens and landscapes to provide food for pollinators throughout the active seasons,” the service said.

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; olivia.cohen@thegazette.com