A couple armed with bug nets wading through roadside fireweed were searching for bumblebees in the Chilkat Valley north of Haines earlier this month as part of a research effort to see if the Western Bumblebee’s range includes Alaska. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists are considering proposing that the species be added to the endangered species list.

“It’s disappeared over a big chunk of its former range which stretched from California out to some of the western states and all the way up into British Columbia at about 55 degrees north,” said Derek Sikes, a University of Alas...