I started this journey chasing one goat
and ended up taking a lesson from
another we humans defend the things we
value that’s why I traveled halfway
across the country looking for a bee I
[Music]
can’t remember what first attracted me
to insects
I was always shy and I wasn’t very good
at sports or other socially acceptable
things I was the kid who was good at
science and art and even though I’ve got
kids of my own now not much has changed
I’ve been training all my life for this
pond still dressed like a ten year old
boy my name is clay bolt I’m a nature
photographer and my favorite subjects in
the world are the little animals that
most people ignore I did some reading
and discovered that there are almost
4,000 species of wild native breeds in
North America honeybee ones everyone is
so worried about actually don’t belong
here Europeans brought them over with
cows and chickens and all of our other
domesticated animals we know almost
nothing about most of the native species
and to photographing native bees became
my obsession
the rusty patch bumblebee has not been
seen in the park since 2003 despite
repeated efforts to find it
we do have records of it occurring all
the way back to the 1930s and so we’re
not entirely sure why we’re seeing the
decline especially in a protected area
like the National Park there was a
stuffed passenger pigeon next to me sort
of staring off into space with its glass
eyes that was the most numerous bird on
the continent but we exterminated it
before we even realized what we were
doing I wondered whether the rusty
patched bumblebee like the passenger
pigeon was another ghost in the making
there are still some rusty patch
bumblebee populations in the Upper
Midwest and whether I could photograph
them or not I needed to know they were
still out there a bee biologist named
rich Hatfield suggested that we meet up
in Madison Wisconsin to try and find the
bee this is the species that used to be
one of the most common bumblebees in the
eastern United States and now it’s
relative abundance has dropped by 90 to
95% so a once common animal has become
incredibly rare in February of 2013 the
zr2 Society filed a petition with the
Fish and Wildlife Service to have the
rusty catch bumblebee listed as an
endangered species and under the law the
Fish and Wildlife Service has to reply
within 90 days with what’s called a 90
day finding they just have to respond
and say the species warrants of a
further investigation by the Fish and
Wildlife Service or it doesn’t when I
met up with rich more than 900 days
after the petition was filed there still
hadn’t been a 90 day finding on the
rusty patch bumblebee
if the agency responsible for endangered
species couldn’t be bothered to respond
then the bee was going to need some
other allies if I could photograph to be
then at least people could see what we
stood to lose I photograph the rescue
patch feeding and flying and resting for
the night one of the really special
moment even though it’s not the best
photo I got with finding a Jain
one of next year’s Queen like a fuzzy
little symbol of hope for the future
what good are insects to start with you
can answer that question in a couple of
different ways one is you can try to
figure out what good are they doing for
me now what is the value of that
biodiversity I think we can all agree
that having zero species probably is not
a good situation having lots of species
well is that better than just having a
few on the one hand I completely
understand that it’s difficult to value
something that it seems so detached from
from our everyday lives on the other
hand if you don’t need to put that value
on it that also says something about how
you value other life in general and I’ll
never forget the first time I put a
beetle under the microscope and look at
it up close and I thought these are the
most beautiful things that I’ve ever
seen that was good enough for me I
didn’t need to put any value on it they
were just beautiful we spend so much
time and effort making life better for
ourselves the least that we can do is
make life possible for this bee
[Music]
people everywhere share a desire to fill
wonder we gravitate toward rare
beautiful things and we’ve got one right
here the rusty patch bumblebee really is
an amazing little animal Leopold said
our ability to perceive quality in
nature begin as an art with the pretty
it expands through successive stages of
the beautiful to value that yet and
captured by language do we have it in us
to save the rest attached bumblebee I
think we do
[Music]
[Music]
mmm
remove
and ended up taking a lesson from
another we humans defend the things we
value that’s why I traveled halfway
across the country looking for a bee I
[Music]
can’t remember what first attracted me
to insects
I was always shy and I wasn’t very good
at sports or other socially acceptable
things I was the kid who was good at
science and art and even though I’ve got
kids of my own now not much has changed
I’ve been training all my life for this
pond still dressed like a ten year old
boy my name is clay bolt I’m a nature
photographer and my favorite subjects in
the world are the little animals that
most people ignore I did some reading
and discovered that there are almost
4,000 species of wild native breeds in
North America honeybee ones everyone is
so worried about actually don’t belong
here Europeans brought them over with
cows and chickens and all of our other
domesticated animals we know almost
nothing about most of the native species
and to photographing native bees became
my obsession
the rusty patch bumblebee has not been
seen in the park since 2003 despite
repeated efforts to find it
we do have records of it occurring all
the way back to the 1930s and so we’re
not entirely sure why we’re seeing the
decline especially in a protected area
like the National Park there was a
stuffed passenger pigeon next to me sort
of staring off into space with its glass
eyes that was the most numerous bird on
the continent but we exterminated it
before we even realized what we were
doing I wondered whether the rusty
patched bumblebee like the passenger
pigeon was another ghost in the making
there are still some rusty patch
bumblebee populations in the Upper
Midwest and whether I could photograph
them or not I needed to know they were
still out there a bee biologist named
rich Hatfield suggested that we meet up
in Madison Wisconsin to try and find the
bee this is the species that used to be
one of the most common bumblebees in the
eastern United States and now it’s
relative abundance has dropped by 90 to
95% so a once common animal has become
incredibly rare in February of 2013 the
zr2 Society filed a petition with the
Fish and Wildlife Service to have the
rusty catch bumblebee listed as an
endangered species and under the law the
Fish and Wildlife Service has to reply
within 90 days with what’s called a 90
day finding they just have to respond
and say the species warrants of a
further investigation by the Fish and
Wildlife Service or it doesn’t when I
met up with rich more than 900 days
after the petition was filed there still
hadn’t been a 90 day finding on the
rusty patch bumblebee
if the agency responsible for endangered
species couldn’t be bothered to respond
then the bee was going to need some
other allies if I could photograph to be
then at least people could see what we
stood to lose I photograph the rescue
patch feeding and flying and resting for
the night one of the really special
moment even though it’s not the best
photo I got with finding a Jain
one of next year’s Queen like a fuzzy
little symbol of hope for the future
what good are insects to start with you
can answer that question in a couple of
different ways one is you can try to
figure out what good are they doing for
me now what is the value of that
biodiversity I think we can all agree
that having zero species probably is not
a good situation having lots of species
well is that better than just having a
few on the one hand I completely
understand that it’s difficult to value
something that it seems so detached from
from our everyday lives on the other
hand if you don’t need to put that value
on it that also says something about how
you value other life in general and I’ll
never forget the first time I put a
beetle under the microscope and look at
it up close and I thought these are the
most beautiful things that I’ve ever
seen that was good enough for me I
didn’t need to put any value on it they
were just beautiful we spend so much
time and effort making life better for
ourselves the least that we can do is
make life possible for this bee
[Music]
people everywhere share a desire to fill
wonder we gravitate toward rare
beautiful things and we’ve got one right
here the rusty patch bumblebee really is
an amazing little animal Leopold said
our ability to perceive quality in
nature begin as an art with the pretty
it expands through successive stages of
the beautiful to value that yet and
captured by language do we have it in us
to save the rest attached bumblebee I
think we do
[Music]
[Music]
mmm
remove
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