- Animals
- News
We asked readers which species they’d save—here are the top responses
Is yours on the list?
Editor’s note, October 22, 2019: A National Geographic/Morning Consult poll of 2,200 adults in the U.S. in October confirmed the informal Facebook poll findings: Fifty-five percent of people polled ranked bees as the species they most want to save.
If you could dedicate your life to saving one species, which would you choose?
National Geographic posed the question to its readers on Facebook, and the most common answer was somewhat surprising: bees.
The insects beat out (by far) other charismatic animals, including elephants, tigers, whales, and polar bears, which round out the top five in that order.
People commented on just how important these insects are for ecosystems and its inhabitants: For instance three-fourths of flowering plants and about a third of crops rely on pollinators like honeybees to reproduce. As one reader wrote: “If bees go, we all go.”
A recent review published in the journal Biological Conservation found that nearly half of the bee species in
DON'T MISS THE REST OF THIS STORY!
Create a free account to continue and get unlimited access to hundreds of Nat Geo articles, plus newsletters.
