Under California’s Endangered Species Act, bees can be legally considered fish. You read that right.
Sacramento’s appeals court ruled on May 31st to reverse a previous ruling that found the opposite to be true.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife argued that bees do in fact fit the criteria of an invertebrate, which should give it protection under the Endangered Species Act. This gives bees and other insects a newfound ability to be classified as ‘endangered’.
The judge said ‘although the term fish is colloquially and commonly understood to refer to aquatic species’, the law makes the legal ‘definition of fish… not so limited’, Fox News reported.
KSBY reports that the court stated:
Although the term fish is colloquially and commonly understood to refer to aquatic species, the term of art employed by the Legislature in the definition of fish in section 45 is not so limited.
Of course, we all know that biologically bees are not fish but when the legislature created the term fish to include invertebrates they essentially were saying that our definition of fish applies and that includes invertebrates and bees are undoubtedly invertebrates.