TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --
Wading through tall prairie grasses and waist-high
Maximilian sunflowers on a bright day, John Lee suddenly stopped mid-step. A
Danaus plexippus was fluttering by a few feet over his head.
With a quick swoop of a 12-foot-long flying insect net,
Mr. Lee captured the monarch butterfly for a closer look on a recent
bug-hunting trip in the Scissortail Trail recreation area.
Mr. Lee is a volunteer insect collector for the 72nd Civil
Engineering Directorate’s Natural Resources office, helping to create an
inventory of insects on the base since 2002. He earned an agriculture degree
from Oklahoma State University in the 1970s, with an emphasis on entomology.
He’s had a keen interest in insects ever since.
Shortly after Mr. Lee began volunteering, the 76th
Propulsion Maintenance Group loaned him to Natural Resources for six months to
perform an ant inventory related to Texas horned lizard research on base.
Today, the metalizing equipment operator with the plasma spray shop, 76th PMXG,
548th PMXS, spends about five to six off-duty hours a week collecting insects,
mostly in the spring, summer and fall. He spends more time at his Midwest City
home poring over insect books to properly identify specimens.
Mr. Lee collects insects using nets, various baits from
tuna fish to Tootsie Rolls, and just plain “getting on the ground and looking,”
he said.
“Identifying takes
quite a while,” he said. “I usually collect them and take them home to find out
what species they are. This season we’re concentrating on monarchs and
bumblebees because they’re having trouble all over. We’re trying to keep an eye
out for them and help them as we can.”
The insect inventory is an important asset because of
federal regulations that call for protecting the natural environment on base,
Natural Resources Manager John Krupovage said. Having a record of all wildlife
on Tinker is “fundamental and foundational” to the Natural Resources office’s
mission.
Mr. Lee has collected hundreds of insect specimens now
pinned in neat rows in glass-topped display boxes and identified on paper
strips. The colorful bugs include ants the size of half a grain of rice and
wide-body American bumblebees.
“Anything that he collects along the line of insects is going
to be beneficial to us because it’s a record of what we’ve got here,” Mr.
Krupovage said. “If any species were to be listed as threatened, endangered,
sensitive, or if it’s vulnerable in any way, hopefully we’ll know whether we’ve
got them here or not.
“Ninety percent of plant-eating insects are
specialists, which means they’ve got to have a particular plant to feed on or
use,” Mr. Krupovage said. “Monarchs, for example, have to have milkweed to lay
eggs on and for larvae to feed on. We’re trying to grow more here in the
greenway to help the monarch population rebound.”