California court ruling that bees are fish is bad for logic but good for humans
California court ruling that bees are fish under Endangered Species Act and California Fish and Game Code is good for bees and humans, if not logic.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. But a new California court ruling means that if it looks like a bee, flies like a bee and buzzes like a bee — it’s a fish. California’s Third Appellate District Court of Appeal ruled at the end of May that bees could be protected under a state law to protect endangered species because bees meet the state’s legal definition of fish.
This wacky ruling requires some explaining, and even though it’s still a bit weird even with the benefit of the explanation, the ruling is for the best. It provides much-needed protection for important species (bees) that in turn will be helpful to another species (humans).
Would “fish” include all the descendants of the common ancestor of fishes, a frequent way biologists define groups? (If so, that would mean that humans could be legally classified as fish.)
Bees have been in dire straits for years. Human behaviors like habitat destruction and pesticide use have decimated bee populations. From 2006 to 2018, commercially kept bees in the United States saw average winter death rates of 30 percent, more than double the historical rate. And from April 2020 to April 2021, beekeepers saw average losses of 45.5 percent. Bees are necessary for many kinds of plants to reproduce, so missing bees means missing plants and the animals that rely on those plants.
In 2018, three groups petitioned California to protect four species of bee (the western bumble bee, Franklin’s bumble bee, the Crotch bumble bee and the Suckley cuckoo bumble bee) that had seen population declines, a move opposed by agriculture groups due to how this could interfere with crop production.
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