Bees are fish, says California court in attempt to use endangered species law

A California appeals court ruled Tuesday that bees can be legally classified as fish, thus qualifying for protection under the state’s endangered species law.

The three judges on the Sacramento-based 3rd District Court of Appeal said that the 1970 California Endangers Species Act (CESA) protects fish, which were initially defined as invertebrates – animals that do not have a backbone – reports The Sacramento Bee.

Insects are not explicitly protected under CESA, only “native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant.”

But it has been used to protect snails and other land-based invertebrate insects, and with Tuesday’s ruling, now ones that fly like bees.

“Accordingly, a terrestrial invertebrate, like each of the four bumble bee species, may be listed as an endangered or threatened species under the Act,” Justice Ronald Robie wrote.

Bumblebees were classified as endangered by the California Fish and Game Commission in 2019 but farming groups successfully argued in a lower court that the law was only intended to protect marine animals, vertebrate or not.

"It is a great day for California's bumble bees," said Pamela Flick, California Program Director at Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups that brought the appeal, in a statement following the ruling.

Critics admit the ruling is not as ridiculous as it sounds but still a strange one .

Jonathan Adler, a writer at Reason and an expert on environmental law, says the question is now how far the new definition of fish extends, as a legal definition does not invalidate the common-sense use of the word.

“The court here interprets the broadened definition of fish to include non-aquatic species, even though most interpreters would recognize the text of the language as substituting a colloquial understanding ("fish" are those animals that live in water) for a technical one,” Adler writes at the libertarian legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

“The court justifies this move by invoking the CESA's purpose. Like [my co-author], I am not convinced.”