California court rules a bumblebee is a fish under environmental law

A bumblebee is a fish beneath California legislation, a California court docket stated in a ruling this week.

And thus, the bumblebee ought to be protected by the state’s endangered species ordinances, court docket paperwork present.

Within the case, Almond Alliance of California v. Fish and Sport Fee, the California State Appellate Court docket of the Third District stated the “challenge introduced right here is whether or not the bumblebee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls throughout the definition of a fish,” in line with authorized paperwork.

In accordance with the judges, the bumblebee is assessed as a fish as a liberal interpretation of the phrase “fish”, in addition to the state’s personal legislative historical past, together with non-aquatic life. 

The judges defined that “though the time period fish is colloquially and generally understood to discuss with aquatic species,” the legislation, as it’s written, makes the authorized “definition of fish… not so restricted,” the court docket paperwork present.

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The court docket defined the “Endangered Species Act” has given classification authority to the Fish and Sport Fee to find out what’s and isn’t an endangered species, court docket paperwork present.

And, beneath the legislation, the fee is solely liable for establishing “a listing of endangered species and a listing of threatened species.” The court docket additionally discovered the fee’s authority “was not restricted to itemizing solely aquatic invertebrates.”

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The state’s personal legislative historical past additionally helps this “liberal interpretation” to categorise a non-aquatic bumblebee as a “fish” as beneath state legislation “the Fee might record any invertebrate as an endangered or threatened species.”

24 March 2021, Hessen, Frankfurt/Primary: A bumblebee has landed on a flower. Picture: Boris Roessler/dpa (Picture by Boris Roessler/image alliance through Getty Photographs)
(Picture by Boris Roessler/image alliance through Getty Photographs)

Earlier than 1969, the legislation outlined fish as “wild fish, mollusks, or crustaceans, together with any half, spawn or ova thereof.” That very same 12 months, the Legislature amended a bit that outlined fish so as to add invertebrates and amphibia. 

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This part was modified solely as soon as, in 2015, when the state Legislature modified the definition to learn “‘[f]ish’ means a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or half, spawn, or ovum of any of these animals.” 

Fish are seen on the market in a harbourside restaurant subsequent to Essaouira Harbour on August 1, 2007 in Essaouira, Morroco. (Picture by Chris Jackson/Getty Photographs)
(Picture by Chris Jackson/Getty Photographs)

“We acknowledge the scope of the definition is ambiguous,” the judges added, the court docket paperwork confirmed.

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The court docket finally dominated Decide James P. Arguelles of the Sacramento County Superior Court docket “erred when [he] reached a opposite conclusion.”