Bumble Bee conservation at Pinery Provincial Park
Contribute to Bumble Bee conservation at Pinery Provincial Park
By Cole Blair
Bumble Bees are crucial pollinators. They facilitate the reproduction of countless flowering plants. Their role as pollinators maintains the integrity of our landscapes, ensuring thriving, biodiverse habitats and ecosystem functions.
Unfortunately, Bumble Bees are growing increasingly imperiled. More than one quarter of North American species are at risk of extinction. Expert researchers work to monitor and recover declining Bumble Bees, but they can’t do it alone. Faced with funding and personnel limitations, Bumble Bee researchers need help from eager citizens with a passion for wildlife to help fill knowledge gaps.
A long-standing community science program, at Pinery Provincial Park near Grand Bend, is seeking volunteers to assist with Bumble Bee monitoring in this iconic location. Pinery’s unique mosaic of habitats, including some of the last remaining Oak Savanna and freshwater coastal dunes in the world, supports hundreds of plant and animal species along a relatively small section of Lake Huron’s southeast shoreline. By keeping track of bumble bees in Pinery, researchers can infer the ecological health of the park and inform management strategies.
Pinery also holds great significance to Canada’s Bumble Bees, likely due in part to its abundant ecological and biological diversity. Pinery is the last known location of the endangered Rusty-patched Bumble Bee in Canada. This species of bee has not been observed in the country since 2009.
Likewise, Pinery is the location where the endangered Ashton Cuckoo Bumble Bee was last observed in Ontario, back in 2008.
Other imperiled bumble bees survive in Pinery, such as the American Bumble Bee, which is listed as Special Concern.
A program operated by the non-profit charity Wildlife Preservation Canada, aims to track changes in species of interest and the broader Bumble Bee community, and hopefully re-discover the Rusty-patched and Ashton Cuckoo Bumble Bees here at Pinery.
The Pinery Bumble Bee Community Science program is open to all ages and requires no experience. Participants receive training on Bumble Bee biology, species identification, and techniques for capturing and surveying Bumble Bees. Volunteers will be asked to sign up for independent surveys at the park, which run from late June to mid-September.
If you are interested in contributing to Bumble Bee conservation at Pinery, please visit Wildlife Preservation Canada’s community science web page to learn more.
Consider registering for the training workshop at the training workshop registration link.