The Power of Policy: Insect Protection Through State Authority

In one of our first episodes we spoke with Sarina Jepsen, the director of our Endangered Species team, about what it means for a species to be federally listed, specifically through the Endangered Species Act. However, species can also be listed through individual states, but not all states are the same, and some states don’t have legislation to protect insects. It is an interesting story!

Joining us to talk about the importance of a state’s authority to protect insects are Kevin Burls and Rosemary Malfi. As Xerces’ Director of Conservation Policy, Rosemary supports and advocates for policy solutions at the local, state, and federal levels that promote the health and conservation of invertebrate species. Presently, Rosemary is leading Xerces’ campaign to pass legislation to define insects as wildlife in states where they are omitted from this definition under the law. Rosemary holds a Doctorate in environmental sciences with a background in native pollinator protection and pesticide policy reform.

Kevin is one of Xerces Endangered Species Conservation Biologists. His work includes collaborating with land managers and scientists to understand the conservation needs of butterfly species, then advocating for their protection by crafting conservation guidelines and legislation with agencies and policy makers at the regional, state, and federal levels. Kevin holds a Doctorate in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology with a background in western butterflies and other native pollinators, and science education.

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Transcript

Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate.

Rachel: Hi, I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: And I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: In one of our previous episodes we spoke with Sarina Jepsen, the director of our endangered species team, about what it means for a species to be federally listed, specifically through the Endangered Species Act. However, species can also be listed through individual states, but not all states are the same, and some states don’t have legislation to protect insects. It is an interesting story!

Rachel: Joining us to talk about the importance of a state’s authority to protect insects are Kevin Burls and Rosemary Malfi. As Xerces’ director of conservation policy, Rosemary supports and advocates for policy solutions at the local, state, and federal levels that promote the health and conservation of invertebrate species. Presently, Rosemary is leading Xerces’ campaign to pass legislation to define insects as wildlife in states where they are omitted from this definition under the law. Rosemary holds a doctorate in environmental sciences with a background in native pollinator protection and pesticide policy reform.

Rachel: Kevin is one of Xerces’ endangered species conservation biologists. His work includes collaborating with land managers and scientists to understand the conservation needs of butterfly species, then advocating for their protection by crafting conservation guidelines and legislation with agencies and policy makers at the regional, state, and federal levels. Kevin holds a doctorate in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology with a background in western butterflies and other native pollinators, and science education.

Rachel: Welcome back to the show, Kevin! And welcome to the show, Rosemary! We’re so happy to have you both here!

Rosemary: Glad to be here. Thanks.

Kevin: Thanks so much for having us.

Matthew: Yeah, no, it's great. I think that was probably the longest introduction ever, Rachel, so good job for getting through.

Rachel: Nailed it! Haha.

Matthew: Haha. Because we're focusing on conservation at the state level today, I'd like to start by asking you to give us a picture of what states can do to conserve plants and animals and the role that they might have in protecting wildlife.

Kevin: Yeah, thanks very much. And thank you, Matthew and Rachel, for letting us come on and talk today about this really important aspect of how we work to conserve insects. So usually when we think of wildlife conservation and action at the state level, we're thinking of departments that are often called Departments of Wildlife or Departments of Conservation and Natural Resources. Sometimes they include parks, sometimes they don't. And these agencies have what are typically titled as state wildlife biologists. And they're the most common point of contact for most citizens with most things wildlife, long before you might meet a federal biologist working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Many Americans know Departments of Wildlife because they manage animals that are hunted and fished, but they are also tasked by the government, by the citizens, to manage the conservation of plants and animals. That includes active conservation measures as well as things like managing the collection of plants and animals, at times.

Kevin: And they do an enormous amount of work conserving wildlife, including surveys for old and new populations. They do studies on the biology and ecology of the species. They lead habitat restoration projects. And most of them, I would say, are long-term residents of an area that have a huge living history of the regions that they work in. These biologists work with other state programs that may catalog the locations of these plants and animals. And then the biologists collaborate with landowners, including private landowners, the states themselves, federal agencies, to make sure that wildlife species are conserved across the state. And that the work done supports other work done across the state and in nearby areas. 

Kevin: And then one other thing—the departments themselves are also tasked, among other things, with making and maintaining official lists of plants and animals that need immediate conservation attention, or else they may continue to decline. Those lists are called lists of Species of Greatest Conservation Need. And I sometimes just call those SCGM lists, so I may use that acronym. And the species on this list typically receive some special attention—I'm sure we'll be talking about—and they really inform the higher priority conservation work that's done by these state wildlife biologists.

Matthew: That's a lot. Yeah, and I also know that in the introduction, Rachel referred to states having legislation or not to protect insects. And I just—I mean, is this a widespread thing that states will include insects in the work they do for plants and animals or is it an unusual thing?

Rosemary: That's a very good question. So many states, yes, insects are included in the definition of wildlife and they will manage their populations to varying extents. Minnesota is a really good example of a department—. They have the Department of Natural Resources, which has authority over insect management, and they do a great job across divisions with habitat restoration projects for pollinators. But there are several states where insects are either not defined as wildlife under the law, or they are not clearly defined as wildlife under the law—under state law. And as a result, there's no agency or department that is specifically tasked with actively managing threatened insect species like bumble bees and the monarch butterfly. 

Rosemary: And there are seven states, specifically, that do not legally recognize insects as wildlife. And these are mostly in the Western U.S. They include Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon. And in the Eastern U.S., we have Tennessee. And then there are an additional six states where the authority to manage insects is just unclear or it's limited according to statute. And these are Montana, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Colorado was one of the states without insect authority, but that was addressed through legislation last year, which hopefully we'll talk about

Matthew: Yeah, I'm—one, I'm a little sad to hear that Oregon, where Xerces is based, was in that list. But I'm also just intrigued with the idea that insects are not wildlife. It seems like an obvious thing. It's almost like kids understand that, but apparently not some state legislators.

Kevin: Yeah, I think I have been told that some of that relates to the idea of wildlife being animals that are hunted, or otherwise captured for our consumption. Yeah, and that is really a legacy—that's the legacy of that in the Western U.S. is this lack of protection.

Rachel: That makes sense. I was actually wondering why so many of the states are in the West and not in the East. So thank you for clarifying.

Kevin: That's my understanding. There may be more to it than that.

Rachel: So what's the purpose of state protection when we have the federal Endangered Species Act? Why do we need both to conserve insects?

Rosemary: That's a great question. States are incredibly important for conserving vulnerable, threatened, and endangered species. State wildlife agencies have local knowledge that is critical for putting a feasible recovery plan together. This includes the different activities taking place across the landscape and local threats to wildlife. And they know their lands just really well. And it takes a lot of time to gain that experience. So states and their biologists are really an important line of defense when it comes to preventing species declines.

Rosemary: It's also a very long process to list a species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. States with management authority over insects can decide that a species, whether it's on the ESA list or not, whether that species warrants intervention, right? So they can decide to do something about it, whether or not the federal government has recognized that species as being especially vulnerable.

Rosemary: And to that point, states have a really important role to play in keeping vulnerable species off of the endangered species list, right? Like that's the goal. And they do this by proactively working to prevent population declines. States can even apply for funds from the federal government to engage in recovery actions. So when a species is considered a candidate species, meaning it's not on the endangered species list, but it might be heading in that direction, it has no protections under the Endangered Species Act. But a state can still get funds to recover populations so that it never ends up on that list. So that's a really important point about why states really need this authority.

Rosemary: And finally, I do want to just say that when—even when federal government is involved, the states really matter. The federal government might be calling more of the shots, but we need all of these on-the-ground partners to be engaged in a recovery plan that is comprehensive and successful.

Rachel: That makes a lot of sense. So does the state listing and the ESA, the Endangered Species Act, influence each other or interact in any way? So if a species becomes endangered on a state list, but then becomes federally listed, what happens then? And does it becoming listed statewide, kind of influence the federal listing?

Kevin: That's a good question. And it brings up a couple related points, as well. To your point about listing a species in a state, I think there’s—it can be an ambiguous term. So I did want to point out that some states do have their own state-level Endangered Species Act, that's totally separate from the federal Endangered Species Act, and also totally separate in its creation from the Species of Greatest Conservation Need lists. It's just its own state-level Endangered Species Act. California is an example of one of the states that has its own state-level Endangered Species Act. So they don't overlap legally in that sense—though you might expect to see similar species on a state endangered species list that might be considered for federal protection, for obvious reasons.

Kevin: When it comes to the Species of Greatest Conservation Need lists, themselves, the list itself is mandated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is the agency that manages the Endangered Species Act. And in fact, another kind of side point is that federally endangered and federally threatened species always find their way onto the Species of Greatest Conservation Need lists, so that they are always identified as of importance by the state. But in fact—as I think we've kind of touched on—the goal of these lists of species is to identify species and the steps that are needed to conserve them in their habitats before they become even more rare and costly to restore, which typically means federal ESA protection. And so the SGCN list really serves more as like a red flag for the state of species that need this attention, so that they don't end up needing to be protected by the federal government.

Kevin: And it's worth pointing out in that vein, that a group can petition for a species to be protected by the Endangered Species Act, but the Fish and Wildlife Service also is constantly reviewing rare species at the federal level to see if they are in need of that level of protection. And so that's the connection there, is that if the states can do something about it, then when the federal government reviews it, they'll see that action.

Matthew: Yeah, right. In the states where insects are not included in conservation efforts, what does this lack of authority mean for insect conservation?

Kevin: Yeah, thanks, Matthew. That's kind of the heart of the question, isn't it? That's the heart of the issue. And I think the headline here is that when Departments of Wildlife can't be proactive and conserve imperiled insect populations, the end result is that the species are more likely to end up needing federal protection from the Endangered Species Act. When states lack the legislated mandate to conserve at-risk invertebrates, the heart is that there's no staff and no dollars dedicated to any sort of work on the species.

Kevin: So for example, we've known for decades now that the monarch butterfly is in decline and all sorts of public and private work has been done to conserve the species and its habitats. However, if, for example, in Nevada, the Department of Wildlife is completing a project—like, say a river habitat restoration project—monarchs and other specific rare pollinator species are not officially considered during that design and carry out of that process because they don't have the authority. Unlike something like, for example, I have friends that work on Western pond turtles—those are part of the process when we think about restoration in the West because they're listed as a vertebrate species on our Species of Greatest Conservation Need list for our state. So that's one example, as this ongoing restoration work. 

Kevin: When a species is more geographically restricted than something like the monarch butterfly, it might be straightforward to protect the species by just protecting the habitat itself. And there are funding sources, like Rosemary mentioned, from the Fish and Wildlife Service that can be used to purchase land to protect at-risk, declining, or listed species. In Nevada, this has been done by the Department of Wildlife back in the early 2000s to protect an endemic springfish that exists only in some areas that we call—the area known as Railroad Valley. So they have purchased land to protect species in this exact way. Unfortunately, this opportunity is not available for things like the Carson wandering skipper, which is one of Nevada's two currently federally protected butterfly species. Without the authority to manage this, it's easy you can imagine, that the money, and the political will, and the staffing that would be required to carry out this sort of land transfer is just simply not going to be available.

Kevin: So this lack of time and money means that species are left unsurveyed. Their habitats may not receive any sort of special attention. Threats that they're facing may not be documented or addressed in any way. And then it has left organizations, possibly like the Xerces Society, to file a federal petition when declines continue. More broadly, a patchwork of state-level conservation is, I think, obviously detrimental to wide-ranging species like the monarch, or the large marble butterfly, which the Xerces Society petitioned to the Fish and Wildlife Service late last year. On the other hand, when multiple states and government partners can work to collaborate and leverage these funds, and carry out similar conservation tactics across a wide landscape, it is possible to prevent the need for species to be listed. In my area, the sage-grouse is one of—the greater sage-grouse—is one of the species that I think of that receives a lot of ongoing collaboration.

Matthew: Yeah, so it seems like there's a lot of benefits to the state, itself, for having that authority.

Rachel: Our next question, what do states gain with the authority to conserve invertebrates? And you've mentioned a few things. Funding, which is huge so you can hire people, but then also consideration when projects come up that might impact their habitat. Is there anything else that we're missing that we do gain from states having that authority?

Rosemary: Those are some of the top things that you gain. Again, the goal is to keep the species from getting onto the endangered species list. And states are best positioned to do that if they have authority and, of course, resources and staffing. Just going back to the funding piece, though, I mean—I just want to harp on the fact that it's a major benefit when a state has authority that they can access federal grant funding. This can include, as Kevin mentioned, grants that help with land acquisitions. But there are also other grants from Fish and Wildlife that are for outreach, or for projects on private land. They often require some sort of state-level matching dollars. And again, these can be used for, yes, threatened and endangered species that are on the ESA list, but they can also be used for candidate species. So again, we're leaving federal money on the table when we don't have insect authority in the state. And those dollars could be used to recover populations that are struggling.

Kevin: I would add one more aspect, which is just the—. When you hire the biologist, one of the things you get out of that is their expertise in the species. And so when a species is federally listed, the federal government still talks with the states when any state or federal actions interact with that listed species, right? If it's an infrastructure project or whatever, when it may come into contact with that species, the federal government needs to—and wants to—talk with state partners about that. And when you don't have the authority, and you don't have the staff, there's simply no expertise available at that level. And so there's nobody to really liaison with the federal government. And it really limits the capacity of the state to voice its own interests in that way.

Matthew: Yeah, and we've been talking a lot about resources, and grants and so on. It seems like states do need a lot of resources to be able to effectively conserve invertebrates and their habitats. I mean, is there anything in particular that states would really need, or can they just kind of adapt what they use for deer, and ducks, and just kind of plow ahead?

Kevin: Yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah, no, you probably—. I have talked to many mammal and reptile biologists that work for the state, and none of them really want to jump into working with butterflies and bees, as well. So you do want the dedicated biologists that know insects. You want an entomologist on staff. And ideally, of course, it's not just a single person wandering around the Great Basin in our state looking for every rare insect that they can find. You would like a team of people that can work collaboratively together.

Kevin: One thing I do—that I think is nice about invertebrates is that they can often be surveyed and collected with very little high-tech equipment. There is high-tech equipment out there for certain things, but a lot of times it's just nets, and jars, or cameras, and so on. But it is surprising what can be needed, as far as the equipment to effectively carry out this task. And it varies from state to state, of course. It's another reason why we have this kind of localized authority and want it, is because the needs vary. For example, in Nevada, we have 314 named mountain ranges. And large regions of the state are accessible only by gravel or dirt roads. And so to carry out entomology surveying effectively in my state, you need a four-wheel drive vehicle that you can rely on. And so that's an important part of any staff member's equipment in our state.

Matthew: Yeah, I mean, I mentioned ducks and deer at the beginning, but I'm like, this work can be combined with other ongoing conservation efforts, or is this really very much a separate task?

Kevin: It can certainly be combined with other restoration efforts. We've already talked about examples with river restoration. Other important habitats are often these—. Sensitive habitats for one species are often sensitive habitats for another species. So there's very good reason to suspect you can combine efforts. But also states participating together with the Fish and Wildlife Service to create things like conservation plans for listed and unlisted species are often produced in groups. And so having the authority to do that is going to allow you to work super collaboratively on multiple species at once.

Matthew: I always think that because insects are small, it's relatively easy to incorporate them into existing plans.

Kevin: Especially species that range across wide areas of the United States, and so are going to be found, yeah, in many different places, like the monarch butterfly is a good example.

Matthew: Yeah, sure.

Rachel: So for the states that don't have any authority, how do we change it? How do we fix this problem? Because it seems like that's sort of like the issue here. What work is Xerces doing to help advocate for state-level insect conservation?

Rosemary: Yeah, thank you for asking that question. So this is a major campaign that Xerces is taking on. We are working in states that do not have insect authority trying to introduce legislation that will grant authority to the appropriate agency. Last year, we helped to pass a law in Colorado that gives their Natural Resources Department authority to manage insects. And that provided the department with funds to hire five entomologists and one botanist to work on conservation efforts. Xerxes had a very strong role in this process, which started with a pollinator health study that our colleague, Steve Armstead, helped to carry out. And on the heels of that study, legislators, you know, understood the importance of pollinators, and the specific threats to their populations and this was a driver of passing this law.

Rosemary: We are now also working on legislation in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Nevada. So if any of our listeners are in any of those states, you should stay tuned for information from us on those bills and how you can advocate for them. And in general, contacting your legislators about this issue is a way to get involved. So even if you're in a state where a bill is not on the table yet, you can contact your legislator and just talk to them about this broader issue. You can write to them about why you think insects are important, what they mean to you. And you can advocate for the state assigning authority to a particular agency. So I really encourage people to do that. And of course, one individual letter is fantastic. Groups of letters are even better. So if you have the networking capacity and the wherewithal to build a group and engage in a letter campaign, I strongly encourage that kind of activity. State legislators are generally pretty accessible. And so if they get an influx of letters, you know, from their constituents, they will pay attention. So I strongly encourage that kind of advocacy.

Rachel: So Kevin, I know you've been working in your state, in Nevada, to push legislation for insect conservation. Can you tell us a little bit about those efforts and how they're going?

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. These efforts—. Thinking back to our elementary and middle school days on how legislation comes to be, it really does begin with meeting Departments of Wildlife, meeting their staff, talking with some of the people who are going to be in charge of these biologists, finding out if they are willing and interested and if they understand the problem that these states face lacking this authority. And then also meeting with legislators, and explaining the problem, and why it is important to solve this problem. Legislators are faced with so many pressing issues that they have to address. And in Nevada, we're really, really grateful that Assemblyman Howard Watts has been a staunch advocate for this issue, and has taken this issue up as a bill again for the 2025 legislative session in our state. So you really have to find those people who know, and understand, and care about the issue, and are willing, just like we are, to be advocates for invertebrates.

Kevin: Second thing is that invertebrates come into contact with many groups of people that are also active in the legislature, like farmers, for example. And so there's a lot of coalition building that goes on in that sense of meeting with people and making sure they understand the bill, and what it's going to do, and why it's important, and what it means for their particular interest groups within the state. And so we have a lot of those meetings, as well.

Kevin: And then after that, the last thing really is that it is just a crazy, crazy rush—that is almost a little hard for me to describe—that really does, when it comes time, requires urgent effort on the part of everybody that's involved, whether it's the just citizens, or us, or the legislators, or the department heads, as well. For example, Nevada's legislative sessions only occur every other year. And when they happen, they only last 120 days. So the whole legislative process for the state for the next two years is done within that. So you really have to, you know, as the bill is going through committee, it's the—any sort of horse trading that goes on in these inevitable deals, budgeting, and that sort of thing—just like every other piece of legislation that goes through the state, has to be done within 120 days.

Rachel: No pressure. Haha.

Kevin: No pressure, that's right. Take your time.

Rachel: It made me think of Schoolhouse Rock! when you were like, “back to middle school,” learning about legislation and how it passes. Haha.

Rosemary: I also wanted to follow up on that and just express how important education and talking to your neighbors and your friends is, right? If you're enthusiastic about insects, like we are, and understand why they're so valuable and beautiful, communicating that to other people is going to build the political will, the public will, to pass these kinds of laws, right? And not just these, but other legislation that may also better protect insects. So that public education, you know, is extremely important and in and of itself is contributing to legislative movement.

Matthew: Most definitely. Where can people go to find out what their state is doing, or who the best person to talk to might be?

Rosemary: It's a really good question. And if you're—. First of all, if you're wondering if your state has authority over insects, if that has been assigned to a particular agency, we actually have an infographic, that we're happy to circulate, that has that information. And we are going to be developing more resources as part of this campaign so folks do have this kind of information in front of them.

Rosemary: If you want to know what your state wildlife agency is doing, you first just need to identify which of those agencies actually has authority. So Kevin mentioned at the very beginning, sometimes it is a Department of Wildlife or Department of Natural Resources. There are some states where it's actually the Game Commission—or the Game and Fish Commission, right? So every state has kind of a different name for their wildlife agency, so first figure out who actually is in charge of non-game species in the state. And then you can usually contact somebody. There are public contacts and you can inquire with them about what they are doing to protect insects. Some states broadcast it very loudly, and they have web pages about how they're restoring things like pollinator populations. And in other states, there's a lot less information available. So it's pretty variable. I encourage folks to do the research. And of course, you can always reach out to us if you have specific questions.

Rachel: It's nice to see the work that we're doing as an organization, and our staff, but then know that like anybody can really help in this effort—that people can make a difference just from home writing a letter, or an email, or a phone call. So thank you for explaining all the information. It can feel technical and probably maybe like a lot. Haha. But it's really important that we all understand how this works and that there's a difference that we can make. So we're going to end here on our favorite questions. Kevin, you've been on the show a few times before, so we have to change the question for you. But we're going to start with our favorite original question for Rosemary, and that's—what inspired you to study invertebrates and to get into policy? I'm very interested to hear about this because policy isn't—. It's just such a specific niche.

Rosemary: Insect policy is even niche-ier. Haha.

Rachel: Haha. Yeah, yeah, exactly. How did you get here? What inspired you?

Rosemary: Yeah. I mean, we could go way back to childhood, right? Like childhood Rosemary, I think we could draw a pretty straight line between her and who I am now. I was very interested in nature and the environment. But I will say, my first experience that really kicked off my professional career studying insects and advocating for them was a research experience I had as an undergraduate. I went to a small institution and the ecology professor happened to be somebody who was studying native bees and crop pollination. And that was my first look into the world of bees, and the incredible diversity of species there are—the fact that there's a distinction between honey bees and all these other kinds of bees, and then learning about the ways that they contribute to crop pollination. This was in the East Coast in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And that I don't—. I just never looked back after that. I ended up doing a project on bumble bees, fell in love with bumble bees. I went on to do doctoral and postdoctoral work on bumble bee population dynamics. I was looking at how things like diet, and seasonal timing of resources, and disease—how those things kind of interact to influence bumble bee populations, how healthy they are.

Rosemary: And the policy piece came—. It's interesting. Toward the end of that, my second postdoc, a paper came out by Matt Forister, Scott Black, and Emma Pelton. And it urged people to take action, right? So this is like 2019, I think. And that paper summed up what I think I had been feeling for a long time, which is, “Gosh, we know all this stuff. Like, we have so much science. Why are we not acting more quickly and more dramatically, you know, to correct this problem and to reverse insect declines?” So I think I felt very driven to be in the decision-making space, and to influence decisions, and to see good science that our colleagues have produced, to see that implemented.

Rachel: Thank you for sharing that. And the position that you hold now at Xerces is a new position for us. So, congratulations! And I'm excited that, that we have this, and this new campaign to push this change forward. And I love that you brought up Matt Forister, because he'll actually be on the podcast for the next episode talking about surveys, and monitoring of butterflies, and how important science and research is. So it all comes, sort of, full circle. And what a small world that you're now working with Scott, and Emma, who were on that paper. Haha. 

Rachel: So Kevin, we're going to ask you a new question. And since this is your third time on, I hope we haven't asked you this question before. What is your favorite wildlife experience?

Kevin: This was a fun question, partly just—. I sat for a few minutes and thought about all of the different field work that I have been lucky enough to be a part of over the last almost 20 years now. It's wild to think about that in a lot of different ways. But I thought, one of the ones that definitely stands out was during graduate school, I went with a small set of friends—and one of the things you do in Nevada is you visit hot springs when you're looking for something fun to do. There are more, and less developed hot springs. Undeveloped hot springs are just what you would expect, they're holes in the ground with hot water in them, and various sizes. We were at a particularly remote hot spring, several hours from where we started in the middle of Nevada, in the middle of the Great Basin, in the middle of a valley with not much around it at all, not even alfalfa farming. And at night, very late at night, we all together noticed flashing lights off in the distance. Which is, slightly uncomfortable feeling when you're just sitting alone in a hot spring in the middle of nowhere.

Kevin: And we watched for quite some time trying to decide how far off it was, and how many people were there, and was it a car, or a flashlight? And there were no farms off in that direction, so it can't be that. And after probably over an hour of hemming and hawing about various things, we finally got out of the spring and notice that they were fireflies. And that was the first time that I had ever seen fireflies in Nevada. This was the first time that any of our friends had ever seen fireflies in Nevada. And so it was really, obviously striking. You feel like you've made a discovery. You feel like you've learned something about the state that you've lived in for many years now. But also, just that you realize why if you were out by the desert—out in the desert by yourself and you came back and tried to describe this to somebody, nobody would ever believe you. You would have such a hard time. Or why 100 years ago, if those were there, you might have thought that they were UFOs, or anything like that. It was a very fun desert night experience and that sticks out because I wasn't by myself, I was with this small group of friends and we all got to experience that discovery together.

Rachel: Wow, that's incredible. I love that you were able to share that, like you said, as well, with other people. And what a great experience.

Matthew: I can definitely see why that one would linger with you. Kind of magical.

Rachel: Well, thank you both so much for being here. And thank you for this work that you're doing. It's just so important. And I'm just always blown away as our staff grows, and the work that we do grows, I just lose track of everything that we're doing. And I just love this time that I get to ask questions, and Matthew and I just get to chat with the staff—and with guests, as well—to understand what's happening in the world of invertebrate conservation. And just to be able to work with both of you is wonderful, so thank you both so much.

Matthew: Thank you.

Rosemary: Thank you for having us.

Kevin: Yeah, thank you very much. 

Rachel: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-based nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us. 

Rachel: If you’re already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast and for show notes go to xerces.org/bugbanter.