Nabhan and Buchmann write this about the honey bee in Australia: Today, ecological researchers and conservation biologists have good evidence that honeybees are adversely affecting vertebrate pollinators (in Australia) including rare honeyeaters and honey possums. Especially during critical breeding periods and during years of drought, nectar and pollen production in the bush are so low that native nectar-feeding wildlife starves while honeybees usurp their needed floral resources." The only source given anywhere near this statement is a Professor R. Wills in Perth. The statement purports that there is a consensus of opinion about the "hordes" (to borrow yet another politically charged word from the authors) of honeybees. Yet Trevor Weatherhead reports, "We have cases now of leaf cutter bees being imported to Australia for lucerne pollination." If native pollinators were so put upon in Australia—if their situation was as dire as all that—I find it hard to believe that authorities would approve the experimental release of another non-native pollinator. i am assuming, of course, that the leaf cutter releases were approved by Australian authorities. I can only conclude from this that Australian biologists are not so greatly concerned about competition from non-native pollinating insects, whether honey bees or leaf cutters.