This week, we’ve been celebrating National Pollinator Week
at U.S. Fish & Wildlife (USFWS). If you’re unfamiliar with pollinators, this
week might not mean very much to you. Coincidentally, before beginning my
internship with the Connecting
People with Nature Team a year ago, I myself knew nothing about the word
“pollinator.” In fact, I didn’t even know that the term referred to a special
set of species. I remember thinking “What is that, like a spray you put on
plants or something?” Throughout the past year, I went from neither knowing,
nor caring about the significance and importance of pollinators to having a
great understanding and appreciation for all they do. This week, in celebration
of National Pollinator Week, I wanted to take you all through my year of
learning to care about this wonderful set of critters and try to pass on the
connection!
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| Me at the Wallowa County Watershed Festival Photo Credit: Gretchen Sausen |
Crash course on Pollinators
My story begins a year ago during the first week of working
with the Connecting People with Nature Team. I was about to head off to the Wallowa
County Watershed Festival in Enterprise, Oregon as my first event with my
team. My task was manning a booth to show visitors the anatomy of a flower and
how it is pollinated. Not having thought about flower anatomy since high school,
I requested a crash course on the topic and was graciously sent a set of fact
sheets all about pollinators, flowers, and foods. This is where I learned
exactly what pollinators were, and the abundant numbers of plants and foods we
eat that depend on them.
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| The beautiful backyard garden where the friend I mentioned pollinated a tree by hand. Photo Credit: Skip Flinn |
No Bees in the Backyard
When I returned from Wallowa County, I found myself more
interested in pollinators and more aware of their presence. I even found that
my fear of being stung by a bee was replaced with the thought “oh, that little
bee is just busy working” (A good sell I must say for teaching those with a
fear of bees). Now that I was more aware, I saw the problem come to life first-hand
one summer day when visiting a friend. For the past few years he had been
growing an expansive garden in his back yard. While explaining to me the
different plants throughout the yard I excitedly asked him “Do you see a lot of
pollinators back here?” I was surprised when he responded “Actually, this year
there weren’t many so I had to pollinate these flowers myself by hand.” Here
was the decline in pollinators, right in our own backyards!
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| A group of students work in their pollinator garden as part of the Schoolyard Habitat program Photo Credit: Joseph Charter School |
Schoolyard Habitat
Shortly down the road, I learned about the focus that USFWS
places on schoolyard habitats. Schoolyard habitats are common projects that the
Connecting People with Nature Team helps fund annually to help students,
teachers and families develop gardens at their schools. Come to find out, the
majority of these gardens specifically work towards growing pollinator habitat.
As threats
to pollinators,
such as loss of habitat, force a decline in their numbers, it’s more important
than ever to not only educate younger generations on the issue, but allow them
to play a role in the conservation of pollinators via school and home gardens.
It doesn’t stop there, USFWS has been diligently working to protect pollinators
across the nation, and this week offers us all a week to celebrate in their
conservation.
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| Spread the word! Photo Credit: Andrew McLachlan/USFWS |
Get Out and Help the Pollinators!
Now, here I am, a year later with a calendar full of National Pollinator Week events
and passing on the spirit to care about pollinators like I have learned to. So
my prescription for this week is that as the week winds down, and the weekend rolls
in, make a plan to do something for the bees, birds, butterflies and bats that quietly
watch over the beautiful gardens all around you. And once you make your
connection – pass it on!
