Bats, bees and beyond: Proposed additions to the Mass. endangered species list

“It's not a drab brown like you would expect most moths to look like," Klassanos said. "It's bright yellow. It has some reddish-brown mottling on it. … It's only maybe three quarters of an inch wingspan, but it's distinctive enough where, when you see one, you know what it is.”

The golden borer moth lays its eggs exclusively on a grass known as bottlebrush, and the caterpillars that hatch bore into that grass.

“It's possible that this species is hiding in one or two other places in the state," said Mike Nelson of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. "But it's also possible it's not, because it has relatively specific habitat and caterpillar host-plant requirements. And it always has been very rare.”

That’s why it’s being proposed for addition to the state’s endangered species list in the most dire category of “endangered.”

“We still have it,” Nelson said. “That means we can hopefully hang on to it, do things to conserve it, enable its persistence in the state.”

The macropis cuckoo bee was actually thought to be extinct until 2002 when it was rediscovered in Nova Scotia. It was then found in Connecticut in 2006, and Veit was part of a group that found it in Maine in 2016 and New Hampshire in 2017. Then in 2018 — more than 90 years since it was last seen in Massachusetts — Veit netted one in the town of Lancaster.

Since then, Veit has identified the macropis cuckoo bee in seven other locations around the state. Veit said he’s hopeful adding the bee to the state’s endangered list will help protect the species.

“It will help dictate how the habitat on state lands is managed, so that it will help to promote the bee and the host plant of the host bee,” Veit explained. He added that the best way to support the bee is to have large amounts of yellow loosestrife, the plant the macropis bee gets pollen from.

Veit is also responsible for proposing the Parnassia miner bee for consideration this year. This species only collects pollen from a kind of rare wetland plant called grass of Parnassus. The bee was not known to exist in the state, but Veit worked with biologists to track down locations where grass of Parnassus was growing and they found the bee in eight of those sites in Western Massachusetts.

These aren't Veit's first proposals of species for inclusion on the endangered list. Three other bee species that are already on the list are the result of his research.

“I happen to be particularly fond of the group of butterflies that this butterfly belongs to, which is the hairstreaks, and they have some very interesting behaviors,” Kessler said. “They're not necessarily the flashiest butterflies, but they are kind of pretty. This particular one has a row of black dots on its hind wing. So it's not even necessarily colorful. It's sort of gray and black, but it's kind of elegant looking.”

It's not known why the species has declined so dramatically in the state, Kessler said.

“There are a lot of different factors that we can kind of point to that are involved,” he said. “I would say that they all point back to human activity.”

Acadian hairstreak populations appear to be doing better in northern New England and Canada, Kessler said, suggesting that climate change may be a contributing factor.

Human activity and disruption around willow plants, which host the butterfly, are also likely factors.

“If that area isn't managed in a way that is acceptable to the butterfly, you can destroy that population,” Kessler said. “One location was under a power line, and the power company decided that they needed to upgrade their service by putting in additional lines. So there was major construction in that area. And within three years of that construction project, the butterfly disappeared.”

State wildlife officials have not previously supported adding horseshoe crabs to the endangered species list, arguing in part that there’s insufficient data on how population numbers have declined.

Heller said that lack of data is part of what they want to address with the species being listed.

“We’re hoping to have scientific studies done that would answer some of the questions,” said Heller. “We’re hoping that there would be more money for restoration of historic spawning and nursery areas. We're hoping that might put pressure on the Division of Marine Fisheries to end the bait take.”

The state Division of Marine Fisheries has proposed new regulationsthat would ban the harvest of horseshoe crabs during their breeding season. That's one reason Mike Nelson of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program doesn't support adding them to the state's endangered species list.

“If we were to list it ourselves, I don't have a direct answer to ‘What would that do?’” Nelson said. “I suppose in theory, it would mean that our agency is saying to another state agency, the Division of Marine Fisheries, that, ‘Yes, we think this species should be regulated more restrictively.’ But we're already saying that.”

Nelson added that some would argue horseshoe crabs aren't rare enough to be on the list.

“I mean, one can still go find fair numbers of them in Massachusetts in various places where they're still doing relatively well," he said. "But that being said, both in Massachusetts and range-wide, the Atlantic horseshoe crab is a species of conservation concern. There are lots of species, like the horseshoe crab, that are of conservation concern that aren't necessarily yet, and hopefully we won't reach the point where we need to list them under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act.”

“Having an overabundance of deer browsing all sorts of plants sort of indiscriminately, unfortunately, tends to result in impacts to populations of rare plants,” Nelson said. “There is some evidence that various species of orchids are … tasty, apparently.”

The frog orchid and Hooker's orchid are listed as endangered, while showy orchid, Loesel's wide-lipped orchid, large-leaved orchid and round-leaved orchid are proposed for addition to the list as threatened.

Other plants proposed for listing as endangered include the incredibly rare split-leaved hawthorn, which only occurs in one place globally: Martha’s Vineyard.

“Hawthorns are particularly susceptible to cedar-apple rust, and other similar rusts,” state botanist Bob Wernerehl said in an email. “These occur commonly and have greater duration when there's more humidity in the air, especially overnight. This type of weather has been increasing in the past 40 years due to climate change.”

Willdenow’s sedge, which is proposed in the endangered category, is threatened by shade that it didn't used to experience, Wernerehl explained.

“The species thrives in forests where plenty of light comes through the canopy, a forest type that was common during a previous era when fire was more common in the landscape,” Wernerehl said. It’s also threatened by deer and invasive plant species.

There are also proposals to list these plants as endangered: velvet rosette grass, which is at the northern end of its range in Massachusetts; winged loosestrife, which is rare in part because farms no longer create the ideal habitat by burning hay fields in the spring; and slender clubmoss, which grows in bogs but is crowded out by a more aggressive common reed.

Bog sedge and slender bladderwort are proposed as additions to the list of threatened species.

Pine Barrens flatsedge and wild lupine could be added as species of special concern. The proposed changes include moving Appalachian bristle-fern from endangered to special concern because more populations of the species have been found in the state.

The one species being proposed for removal from the list is Ogden's pondweed, but it’s more of a technicality than a miraculous recovery.

“Nowadays we have all sorts of new DNA tools that we didn't used to have,” Nelson said. “So when it comes to Ogden's pondweed, that's a good example of a species that, based on just its physical characteristics, used to be thought, biologically, to be a separate species from close relatives. But more recent evidence, including DNA evidence, has shown that it is not.”