The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the rusty patched bumblebee as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Endangered species are animals and plants that are in danger of becoming extinct.
This comes after the agency placed seven species of Hawaiian bees, including the yellow-faced bee (Hylaeus anthracinus) on the list in September.
The rusty patched bumblebee, Bombus affinis, originally had high population numbers along the East Coast and the Midwest in the 1990s, but colony numbers have diminished since 2000.
Its range has dwindled from 28 states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces to 13 states with scattered populations in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin and the province of Ontario.
Bumblebees are among the most important pollinators of crops such as blueberries, cranberries, and clover and almost the only insect pollinators of tomatoes. Bumblebees are more effective pollinators than honey bees for some crops because of their ability to “buzz pollinate.” The USFWS estimates the economic value of pollination services provided by native insects to be $3 billion per year in the U.S.
For more, read the USFWS fact sheet.