What, exactly, is wildlife?

Oxford Dictionary defines it as “any animal which is now or historically has been found in the wild, or in the wild state … including both game species and non‐game species and vermin.” 

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it includes “any member of the animal kingdom, including without limitation any mammal, fish, bird … amphibian, reptile, mollusk, crustacean, arthropod or other invertebrate …”

But in Nevada, where there are more than 1,000 species of bees, over 200 species of butterflies and thousands of other known insects, invertebrates are not defined in Nevada’s Revised Statutes as wildlife.

And if Nevada law doesn’t explicitly outline a species as wildlife, the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) lacks management authority over the species.

For the second consecutive session, wildlife advocates are looking to amend that through legislation that would categorize insects considered imperiled as wildlife. Introduced by Assm. Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas), AB85 would grant the department authority over select insects previously identified by NDOW as species of concern — primarily certain bees and butterflies, including the monarch butterfly and Morrison bumble bee — two species being considered for federal Endangered Species Act protection.

AB85 mirrors 2023’s AB221, an Assembly Committee on Natural Resources bill supported by more than 140 scientists who argued there is no reason to exclude insects from management practices. That bill ultimately was squashed in a budget committee.

This session, insect advocates are hoping that by highlighting different aspects of the second iteration of the bill, including the financial benefits insects have to the state and efficiencies gained by state management of species, they can get it over the finish line. AB85 was heard last month, and during the bill’s hearing, NDOW officials testified in neutral but said in a fiscal note that it would cost upwards of six figures — a potential flytrap given the state’s precarious budget situation.

Kevin Burls, endangered species conservation biologist for the Xerces Society, a science-based nonprofit focused on the conservation of invertebrates, as an example pointed to the challenges surrounding the bleached sandhill skipper, a rare Nevada butterfly being considered for listing on the federal endangered species list.

“This is a very proactive bill,” Burls said. “They (NDOW) can take proactive measures that lessens the need for federal protection that comes along with ... a very heavy hand.”

Similar to last session’s bill, dozens of scientists have expressed support of the measure.

“From a biological perspective, wild insects are indeed wildlife; there is no scientific or biological reason to exclude them from wildlife management efforts,” according to a letter scientists drafted to lawmakers. “Invertebrates, including butterflies and bees, are at the heart of a healthy environment. 

“Providing NDOW with the authority to work to conserve monarchs, other butterflies, bumble bees and other important insects — as they do with mammals, birds, amphibians, and other wildlife — is the first step in ensuring that these animals do not become endangered, and that society can retain the vital services that insects provide.”

More state oversight means less federal involvement 

Pollination is essential for ecological survival. 

More than three-quarters of the world’s crop plants require pollination. In the U.S., pollination of agricultural crops is valued at $10 billion annually; worldwide, pollinators contributed an estimated more than $3 trillion. 

But over the last several decades, pollinators have suffered severe population declines due to pesticides, invasive pests and diseases and loss of habitat.

State management of terrestrial invertebrates — animals that live on land and do not have backbones, such as spiders, worms, bees and butterflies —“would be a whole new world for Nevada's wildlife,” Jon Young, NDOW wildlife staff specialist, told The Nevada Independent. “Terrestrial invertebrates are the link between habitat, plants and the wildlife itself. That invertebrates are that connection… It sounds small, but in reality it's massive.”

Sixty-eight of Nevada’s insects are endemic to the state, living nowhere else in the world, and Nevada ranks eighth in the nation for diversity in butterfly species.

But in 2023, the year AB221 died, The New York Times reported that Nevada was one of just a dozen states that hadn’t granted its department of wildlife authority over insects.

“We are among a handful of states that have our hands tied from managing these species,” Watts wrote in an email. “We do not want the federal government controlling Nevada's destiny.” 

Just prior to AB221’s death, NDOW updated its state wildlife action plan, a congressionally mandated plan outlining conservation needs for wildlife and habitat that was last updated a decade ago. In its updated plan, NDOW identified 367 species of greatest conservation need (the previous wildlife action plan identified just 257.) An animal does not need to be under NDOW’s management to be included in its wildlife plan, and included in that list for the first time were 66 terrestrial invertebrates. 

The plan identifies 42 butterflies, 23 bees and one beetle as being species of greatest concern in Nevada and under AB85, the state’s wildlife department would have management authority over those critters as well as any other non-pest, terrestrial invertebrate designated species of greatest conservation need.

While designating an animal a species of greatest conservation need doesn’t carry the same weight as being listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, the designation does help NDOW draft an action plan for the animal.

In Nevada, the state’s department of agriculture has authority over pest insects, such as Mormon crickets, as well as a managed pollinator protection plan that reduces domestically kept bees’ exposure to pesticides.

NDOW manages freshwater snails, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages federally listed endangered species. Otherwise, insects are generally unregulated and unmanaged in the state, even though three quarters of Nevada’s more than 3,000 native plants and flowers require insects for pollination, Burls said. 

Without management authority over insects of greatest conservation need, NDOW has concerns “that certain groups of species may be declining in the absence of quantifiable status assessments, and these knowledge gaps will prevent the conservation and stewardship of the species,” according to its wildlife action plan.

Management would fall under NDOW’s small biodiversity division — its 13 biologists are tasked with managing 695 of the 897 species managed by the state, and NDOW says it would require another employee to oversee the management of terrestrial invertebrates.

“A lot of those (695) species we’re still trying to wrap our heads around,” Young said. “You throw terrestrial invertebrates into that, and they’re even more difficult to understand … You really have to have expertise to hone in on those species out in the field.” 

And while many bills moving through the session this year are trying to avoid fiscal notes due to projected budget constraints, “This is a policy that really needs the funding to achieve the goals set by it, and to support the Department of Wildlife,” Burls said. “We didn't feel like we could ethically push a bill that wasn't fiscally supported.”

It remains to be seen whether lawmakers bee-lieve in it too.