Addition of Hawaiian bees to endangered species list unrelated to honey bees

…Given the national panic about bee populations, you can see why this addition… might make something of a splash.

But we should not be panicking about the bees. …[Y]es, we can worry about the recently listed bees, but that’s a separate problem. The threat of colony collapse disorder… has largely passed. …[D]espite troubling population declines in the late ’00s, honeybees are not actually in imminent danger of extinction. They… have largely recovered well…

For the most part, the FWS’s announcement was covered correctly… by national media outlets. “Bees Added to U.S. Endangered Species List for 1st Time,” read the headline of one story from NPR. That story ….[made no] mention of honeybees whatsoever, since, again, they’re separate problems, a distinction that many people… failed to grasp.

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Here’s how biotechnology can reduce threats from disease and pests without resorting to sometimes-problematic chemicals

Perhaps it was the liberal use of such nonspecific phrasing (“The bees are dying,” read one Washington Post lede)… Or perhaps it’s the fact that 6 in 10 people who share a link never even clicked on it.