Recommendation: To improve the effectiveness of federal efforts to monitor wild, native bee populations, the Secretary of Agriculture, as a co-chair of the White House Pollinator Health Task Force, should coordinate with other Task Force agencies that have monitoring responsibilities to develop a mechanism, such as a federal monitoring plan, that would (1) establish roles and responsibilities of lead and support agencies, (2) establish shared outcomes and goals, and (3) obtain input from relevant stakeholders, such as states.

Agency: Department of Agriculture
Status: Open

Comments: As of October 2019, USDA had taken relevant and positive actions but had not yet fully implemented GAO's February 2016 recommendation for monitoring wild, native bees. According to a senior USDA official, a Native Bee Monitoring Steering Committee composed of representatives from four USDA agencies is developing a response to the recommendation. According to the official, the steering committee has taken or plans to take several steps regarding a monitoring plan. First, the steering committee held a stakeholder listening session in June 2017 to obtain public opinion regarding (1) why a native bee monitoring program is important, (2) the type of information and data needed to adequately conduct monitoring, and (3) how the public would like to see the monitoring data used. Highlights of the input received at the listening session and the goals of the national monitoring plan were discussed in a symposium held in November 2017 at the National Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting. USDA gathered additional recommendations from symposium participants based on monitoring programs for other declining species of concern, such as birds, bats, and butterflies. Second, the steering committee drafted a prospectus that will delineate activities being conducted by relevant federal agencies with responsibilities for surveying species of concern, including plans to coordinate activities and outline individual roles and responsibilities towards facilitating a national monitoring plan. According to the senior official, the committee worked with USDA officials to ask other federal agencies associated with the Pollinator Task Force to summarize their current and future activities in support of monitoring native bee populations. The committee completed its report entitled The Current State of Federal Agency Coordination in Monitoring Native Bee Health in January 2019. Third, the steering committee held a "Scientists' Summit" in April 2018 at the National Conservation Training Center. The purpose was to obtain scientific expert opinion regarding (1) why a native bee monitoring strategy is needed; (2) what such a monitoring strategy would measure and be used for; (3) standard minimum protocols that would improve data quality and sharing; and (4) databases that could be used to house data from a monitoring strategy. Participants included university and governmental experts on bees, statisticians, modelers and ecologists, and conservation biologists assessing other species in decline. Workshop discussion leaders subsequently drafted for publication in a scientific journal a whitepaper with recommendations on a U.S. national native bee monitoring strategy. However, as of October 2019, according to senior USDA officials, the white paper had not yet been accepted for publication. We support the agencies' efforts to date to implement the recommendation. However, we believe that the agencies must take additional steps to improve the effectiveness of federal efforts to monitor wild, native bee populations and will continue to monitor their actions. In 2020, according to a senior USDA official, a National Native Bee Monitoring Research Coordination Network is being formed to address GAO's recommendation to develop a federal monitoring plan for wild, native bees, with the project expected to begin in spring 2020. Some USDA officials told us that without a team to coordinate a monitoring plan, individual agency efforts may be ineffective in providing the needed information in trends on wild, native bees in the United States. The project is scheduled to be completed in 3 years.