![]() ![]() ![]() Hatfield, now senior conservation biologist for the nonprofit’s endangered species program, remembers thinking, “How could we do a better job gathering data for the purposes of conservation decision making?”īefore Hatfield’s tenure at Xerces, a number of studies indicated that several species of bumblebees were experiencing significant population declines. He realized a pile of data on bumblebees he’d been handed to assess the extinction risk of North America’s bumblebees forced him to make inferences that made him uncomfortable. Rich Hatfield, who has studied bees all his adult life, says the idea for the atlas was born about 10 years ago when he began working at the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, in Portland, Oregon. ![]() The atlas is a terrific example of how partnerships between government, nongovernmental organizations, private landowners and volunteers have contributed to preventing the extinction of so many animals and plants over the course of the Endangered Species Act’s first 50 years. ![]() Over the last five years, the Bumble Bee Atlas project has grown from an idea on how to get volunteers involved in collecting data on native bumblebees in the Pacific Northwest to a nationwide quest to learn as much as we can about these vital pollinators. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |