Wild bee populations are declining globally due to habitat loss, pesticides, and disease, threatening ecosystem services that support both wildlife and human food security.
Wild bees are individual animals capable of suffering, not merely ecosystem service providers. Pesticide exposure causes disorientation, inability to forage, and death. Habitat loss eliminates nesting and feeding resources. Valuing bees only as pollinators misses the welfare dimension of the billions of individual animals affected by these declines.