Of Pollinators and Pilgrimages
How a documentary about endangered bees inspired a family trip — and fostered a love of nature in a pair of young boys.
Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), considered by many to be the father of modern wildlife management, was an American naturalist whose impact on ecological thought can’t be overstated. Among his most enduring ideas was that every species, no matter how small, plays a vital role within its ecosystem. It’s an idea encapsulated by one of his most famous maxims: “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
His ideas resonate now more than ever. Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed adding a new species, the rusty patched bumble bee, to the Endangered Species List. The rusty patched bumble bee has been declining over the past century due to a combination of factors, including the loss of habitat, the widespread use of pesticides, and the introduction of disease. Today these bees, which were once widely distributed throughout the country, can barely be found anywhere.
To draw attention to their decline, nature photographer Clay Bolt has produced a short film titled A Ghost in the Making: Searching for the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee — a document of his quest to photograph this species in the wild before it goes extinct. In the film, Bolt travels across the country in search of the bee, interviewing scientists along the way about why the bee is disappearing. Toward the end, he makes a pilgrimage to Leopold’s famed “shack” in Wisconsin — once the naturalist’s rustic retreat, now an ecology research center that’s open to the public — to reflect on why, exactly, the loss of this bee even matters.
In describing the goal of his film, Bolt has said that he wanted to raise public awareness of the bee. “We humans defend the things we value. But how can we care about something we barely know?”
I’m a wildlife biologist. My job is to help protect species like the rusty patched bumble bee and to try to save them from extinction. Given what I do for a living, I could be expected to find a film like this one affecting. But as it happens, this movie touched me for another reason altogether.
At one point during the film, Bolt looks at the camera and says, “I’ve been training my whole life for this. That’s why I’m still dressed like a 10-year-old boy.” Between that moment and the one in the opening of the film when Bolt confesses that he wasn’t like other kids when he was young — that he was the one who was good at science and art — I knew I had to share the movie with my two young sons. Both are budding artists with a keen interest in the natural world, a trait that is woefully undervalued in our schools, and in our society, these days.
So I showed my boys the film — and then we went on a pilgrimage of our own. Our summer travels this year took us first to Bozeman, Montana, which just happens to be the home of Bolt, who was gracious enough to meet with my sons and talk to them about how he became a nature photographer concentrating on “the little animals that most people ignore.” He gave them advice about what steps they might take to nurture, and even combine, their interests in nature and art. In our technology-obsessed culture, where these interests aren’t always rewarded, such advice was warmly welcomed.
By coincidence, we had also planned to travel to Wisconsin this past summer, and so we took it upon ourselves to stop in for a visit at Aldo Leopold’s shack. Leopold has long been a personal hero of mine — and is, in fact, the namesake of my older son — so for the members of my family, the trip had extra meaning.
We didn’t find any rusty patched bumble bees this summer. But we did discover something else: Placing the rusty patched bumble bee on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Endangered Species List won’t be enough — on its own — to save it from extinction.
In fact, it may very well be that the success of species conservation efforts has less to do with biology and the law, and more to do with art and compassion. As Bolt sums up at the end of his film: “People everywhere share a desire to feel wonder. We gravitate toward rare, beautiful things, and we’ve got one right here. The rusty patched bumble bee really is an amazing little animal. When you get to know them, all species are. That’s what gives me hope.”
For me, of course, it’s not just the bee and its beauty that give me hope. It’s also getting to know people like Clay Bolt — and all the astutely observant 10-year-olds — whose eye for the beauty of nature compels them to tell the story of the “little animals that most people ignore” in a way that can’t help but make other people care.
