USFWS Designates Critical Habitat For The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) has published its final rule designating critical habitat for the endangered rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis).

What Does the Rule Do?

The rule designates more than 1.5 million acres of occupied critical habitat broken into 14 units across 33 counties in six states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Virginia, and West Virginia. This designation is intended to protect the landscapes that support the bee’s nesting, foraging, and overwintering needs.

What’s New in the Final Rule?

USFWS made several updates between the proposed and final designations:

• Refined habitat boundaries: USFWS removed imprecise or low‑accuracy bee observation records, resulting in a reduction of roughly 20,887 acres from the proposed rule. Some of that location data had accuracy ranges “from 0 to approximately 6.5 million feet,” which USFWS found was not suitable for habitat analysis.