The Federally Threatened and State Endangered American burying beetle has been a focal conservation species at The Wilds for over a decade. Thanks to the financial support of a cooperative federal grant The Wilds received in May 2022, efforts will continue for several years to come.
The Wilds partners with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC), and the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens to restore this once expansive and now endangered species back to its native range in Ohio. For the past three years, partial support for this program has come from a Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund (CESCF) grant awarded to the ODNR by the USFWS, and The Wilds is a sub-recipient. This funding supports two technicians (one at each partner institution) to assist with captive breeding, releases, trapping, and research. Support was increased last year to include funding for breeding and release supplies, and travel to Nebraska to collect brood stock.
Last month, the ODNR was awarded another CESCF grant, and The Wilds will receive $77,915 over the next three years to support the American burying beetle reintroduction program in Ohio. In addition to supporting technicians, supplies, and travel, the grant also includes funding to conduct stable isotope research to determine if any beetles caught during our trapping season are wild-born. This vital research will inform reintroduction success and future management.
Recently, our Ecology Technician, Oliva Alvarez Rhaesa, and I traveled to the eastern Sandhills of Nebraska with our partners at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden to collect 60 American burying beetles to bring back to Ohio and breed in our care. The Sandhills of Nebraska is one of the last few strongholds of wild American burying beetle populations. Working with our partners at NGPC, we set up 14 pitfall traps that included a 5-gallon bucket that was buried with soil and a rat carcass to attract the beetles. Pitfall traps allowed us to safely capture American burying beetles because once they enter the trap, they can burrow in the bucket soil for protection. As animal wellbeing is our utmost priority, traps were checked first thing in the morning to reduce the time the beetles were in a trap and to ensure they don’t get overheated. A record-breaking 264 American burying beetles were captured with this year’s efforts! We selected 30 males and 30 females to bring back to Ohio. (Half went to the Cincinnati Zoo and the other half to The Wilds.) Due to their short median life expectancy, living only six months to a year, we will breed two generations and release the second generation at The Wilds in 2023.
This summer, The Wilds will release the second generation of American burying beetles whose grandparents were collected in Nebraska last year. We will pair males and females together based on the Species Survival Plan® (SSP) recommendations for the American burying beetle, which ensures genetic diversity is conserved. We will dig small holes in the ground at our release site and place the pair with a rat carcass that will trigger the pair to breed. They will prepare the rat by removing all the fur and then covering the carcass in their anti-microbial and anti-fungal secretions to protect it from degrading too quickly. The female will lay her eggs next to the carcass, which will become food for the larvae when they hatch. Both parents will then protect the offspring and provide care for them until they pupate, a unique trait for insect species. In a few months, the offspring will emerge and live their life out in the wild and hopefully find a mate. Our trapping efforts will give us a good idea of how successful the release was, as we capture these offspring and mark them for our population demographic study.
Stay tuned for more information later in the year as we conduct releases and traps this summer. We look forward to continuing our efforts with all our partners for the next several years!
