Wisconsin Nature at Home: Everyone as Conservationist - Float Like a Butterfly Sting Like a Bee

Bees often visit our asters in late Sept and Oct.

As noted by Greta Thunberg yesterday, we're at the beginning of a mass extinction event. (If you missed the speech, click here)

We've known for some time, at least a decade that honeybees were in decline. We've known that fisheries are being depleted. We've become aware that monarch butterflies are disappearing. Whale populations which had been on the rebound (Orcas in the Northwest and Wright Whales in the Northeast) are struggling. And the even more recent news of a 3 Billion bird decline since the 1970s is just latest evidence of an impending extinction event.

There was a time when human caused extinction and extirpation were caused by direct and intentional human behavior; a time when mankind simply hunted animals to the brink.

Classic image of overhunting (from Cornell Labs)

Many of the species losses now aren't quite so direct. They are still however the result of human behavior. Habitat loss, herbicides, and insecticides which are tied to agriculture and landscaping.

Pollinators are of particular interest, perhaps because so much information has been shared about bee and butterfly declines. Perhaps we show interest because butterflies are beautiful. And of course it turns out that pollinators are a necessary part of the food chain.

Probably the greatest irony of pollinator declines is that agricultural use of pesticides in particular neonicotinoids have devastated bee populations. Bee populations on which we depend for pollinating the crops of your favorite fruits and vegetable are hurt this very production.

Initially the population declines were first reported in honeybee populations as Colony Collapse disorder. In more recent years, wild bee populations have struggled as well. In 2017, the Rusty Patched Bumblebee was the first bumblebee species to be listed as endangered. Both honeybees and wild bees are impacted by agricultural pesticide use but unlike honeybees (which are shipped around the country to pollinate fruits and vegetables) wild bees are local bees, so their struggles go well beyond agriculture.

The modern yard receives almost quarterly treatment of herbicides to prevent the growth of dandelions, creeping charlie, violets and other weeds. These other plants are key nectar sources for wild bees. Neighborhoods and towns made of turf grass do nothing to support local bee populations. If there isn't anything for them to eat, they'll move on or starve.

Butterflies also struggle in the absence of weeds. Butterflies don't just need flowers with nectar to survive, their caterpillars typically mature while eating specific host plants. For example, Red Admiral butterflies use Stinging Nettle as a host plant for their caterpillars. Violets are host plants for fritillaries. And of course monarchs need milkweed for a host plant. In other words a weed free world is a world devoid of butterflies.

Gardners and property owners are in a unique position to help pollinator populations rebound. There's been a lot of movement on the milkweed front. People are growing it in their gardens, watching for caterpillars, and some are even captive rearing the caterpillars (although it remains to be seen if this is beneficial). Here are a few other things you can do to help pollinators:

1) Plant flowers which flower at different times from spring to fall. One of my favorite later flowering plants are asters. They draw in a ton of bees and butterflies as a last chance for nutrition as summer comes to a close.

2) Plant host plants. Asters, milkweed, fennel, dill, wild cherry, oaks, and willows.

3) Avoid pesticides or herbicides on your lawn. Let the weeds grow. They are remarkably helpful to the early spring pollinators.

4) They also make a variety of bee house or pollinator hotels which try to provide shelter for pollinators like solitary bees.

Like many of the challenges discussed here; the root cause is human behavior, and the good news is we have the ability to change our behavior and do better by the living things around us and by extension ourselves.