According to the California Court of Appeals, bees can now be legally classified as fish.
The decision, announced Tuesday, came after wildlife officials were sued by farming groups for trying to list four land bee species under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA).
The judges overturned the lower court’s decision and ruled that endangered or endangered bees could be listed in the CESA fish category – as “fish” is defined as including invertebrates.
“The day is great for California earth bees,” said Pamela Flick of Defenders of Wildlife, one of the defendants in the case, in a press release.
“Today’s decision confirms that the protection of the California Endangered Species Act applies to all endangered native species in our state and is critical to conserving our state’s known biodiversity.
According to CESA, an ‘endangered species’ can be a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile or plant. However, this definition may omit other endangered species, such as insects.
On the other hand, the California Fish and Games Code defines “fish” as including wild fish, mollusks, crustaceans, invertebrates and amphibians. This seems to stretch the conversational frontier of “fish” – few people would describe cancer as a fish, for example.
But the expanded definition allows the state to protect, for example, California freshwater shrimp, a species that lives only in California and is endangered.
In this recent case, the state court had to decide whether bees were considered “invertebrates” according to the state’s definition of “fish”.
“Fish, as is commonly understood in everyday language, of course live in aquatic environments,” the judges said in the ruling.
However, California’s definition of “fish” includes at least one terrestrial invertebrate – the Trinity bristle snail.
The judges concluded that the definition of “fish” here should not be limited to aquatic wildlife and that terrestrial invertebrates, such as bees, can be listed by law.
Insects like bees face a variety of threats, from pesticides to the climate crisis. According to the nonprofit Xerces Society, an insect protection group and another defendant in the case, 28% of North American earth bees are on the verge of extinction.
Worldwide, warming and habitat loss are reducing insect populations – which could have serious environmental consequences for things like pollination and food sources for other wildlife.
“The court ruling allows California to protect some of its most endangered pollinators, a step that will contribute to the resilience of the state’s local ecosystems and farms,” Sarina Jepsen of the Xerces community said in a press release.
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