Order for 60-day pause on
regulations not yet implemented includes protection for endangered rusty
patched bumblebee, which experts say is near extinction
Oliver Milman
Friday 10 February 2017
17.38 GMT Last modified on Friday 10 February 2017 18.03 GMT
Donald Trump has been accused of
targeting Muslims, media outlets and even department stores in his first month
in the White House. Now, the US president may have doomed a threatened
bumblebee.
An executive order freezing new
regulations could push the rusty
patched bumblebee towards extinction, environmental groups claim.
The 60-day pause on all federal regulations that have yet to be implemented –
which includes the bumblebee protection – will review “questions of fact, law,
and policy they raise”, according to the White House memo.
The bumblebee was the first bee
of any kind in the contiguous US to ever be declared
as endangered, with the listing decided during the final days
of Barack Obama’s administration. Trump’s halt on new regulations came just one
day before protections were formally put in place for the crucial pollinator.
The rusty patched bumblebee was
once abundant across 28 states from Connecticut to South Dakota. However, the
widespread loss of grasslands and prairies, pesticide use and a parasitic
fungus have taken a severe toll on the black- and yellow-striped insect.
The species is now found in
scattered populations in the midwest, having suffered an 87% population slump
since the mid-1990s. Conservationists fear the pause in protection for the bee
could seal its demise, especially if the regulation were delayed further.
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