https://nypost.com/2022/06/04/...s-bees-are-now-fish/

In an only-in-California decision, an appeals court in the Golden State has ruled that some types of bees are now legally considered to be fish.

The head-scratching decision by the California Court of Appeals was hailed by proponents as “a win for the bumblebees.”

It reversed a lower court’s ruling in favor of agricultural interests who argued the state’s Endangered Species Act protected only “birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and plants” – not bees or other bugs.

The decision was a victory for environmental groups and the state’s Fish and Game Commission, which had pushed to list four bumblebee species as endangered.

The court in its opinion gave the commission the right to list invertebrate species like the bees as “endangered” even if they’re not aquatic animals.

The judges wrote that “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.

Matthew Sanders of Stanford Law School’s Environmental Law Clinic hailed the decision as “a win for the bumblebees, all imperiled invertebrates in California, and the California Endangered Species Act.”

Insects are “foundational to California’s agricultural production and healthy ecosystems,” he told Reuters.

Sanders’ clients – the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Food Safety – petitioned the Fish and Game Commission in 2018 to add the Crotch’s bumblebee, Franklin’s bumblebee, Suckley cuckoo bumblebee, and Western bumblebee to the state’s endangered species.

The commission designated the four as “candidate species,” providing them interim protections while considering whether to classify them as endangered.

However, the Almond Alliance of California, the California Farm Bureau Federation, and five other agricultural groups filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court in a bid to clarify that CESA does not protect insects.

In 2020, the Superior Court ruled that the law’s reference to “invertebrates” had to be read in context, and included only aquatic animals.

Well gee whaddya expect? These are the same dingbats believing there are 195 different genders.

And as an amateur beekeeper, I know better. Fish stink. lol.
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This is another bald-faced example of courts legislating. Rather than force them to go back to legislature to lobby for the inclusion of insect/bees in the endangered species act, the courts have taken it upon themselves to do it.

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
This is another bald-faced example of courts legislating. Rather than force them to go back to legislature to lobby for the inclusion of insect/bees in the endangered species act, the courts have taken it upon themselves to do it.

This was exactly my thoughts.

Instead of telling of telling the lawyers to go back and write an amendment to the Endangered Species Act, they instead decided to 'interpret' the language of the document.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by bigwagon:
This is another bald-faced example of courts legislating. Rather than force them to go back to legislature to lobby for the inclusion of insect/bees in the endangered species act, the courts have taken it upon themselves to do it.

This was exactly my thoughts.

Instead of telling of telling the lawyers to go back and write an amendment to the Endangered Species Act, they instead decided to 'interpret' the language of the document.

Setting a very dangerous precedent!

They also think men can get pregnant …

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
In an only-in-California decision,

Bees are considered livestock in Montana.

No concept of what process is. Who owns the process. How a process is followed. How a process is managed. There there is a process. CA people feel entitled that process is not relevant; they don't need to follow established processes and rules. They do whatever they feel like.

No concept of checks and balances. No concept of separation of powers. No concept of accountability. No concept of responsibilities and ownership. Again, CA people feel entitled to do what they want, even if it's not their decision to make, responsibility to own, and won't be held accountable when things go wrong.

CA will fall hard like Rome.

They’re a hell of a lot closer to livestock than fish.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
In an only-in-California decision,

Bees are considered livestock in Montana.

Honey bees are used to produce food directly (honey) and to aid in the production of other foods indirectly (pollination in almonds and avocados that I know about, they are probably used for pollination in many other crops). Considering honey bees livestock doesn’t seem unreasonable at all. Considering bumble bees (or honey bees for that matter) fish requires a level of either stupidity or intellectual dishonesty that is truly impressive.

There's an opinion from a Canadian court which convicted a man who shot his lame horse of violating the Migratory Bird Act, after finding that his horse was, in fact, a migratory bird.

The thing is, that opinion ( Regina v. Ojibway), is a work of fiction used to teach the pitfalls of reductio ad absurdum statutory interpretation.

It's apparently real now.

-Rob

BumbleBee Tuna?

I was going to suggest that bees be considered plants as they pollinate plants...they must be part of the plant....

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
In an only-in-California decision,

Bees are considered livestock in Montana.

Livestock makes sense. There are a lot of Florida and Texas beekeepers that drive around with a flatbed trailer load of bee hives and charge a lot of money to farmers for pollination. Almond growers, in particular.

quote:

Originally posted by two-two-niner-romeo:
BumbleBee Tuna?

What does Jessica Simpson say?

Sounds fishy.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by two-two-niner-romeo:
BumbleBee Tuna?

What does Jessica Simpson say?

What does the fish say?

If you read the decision the court did not say that bumble bees are fish. Not at all, not close, and not even an inference.

What the court said is that the legislature had provided the agency with the authority to determine what constitutes a fish and the agency, within the parameters set by the legislature, had the authority to make the determination.

The court was not being activist. To the contrary it was being very conservative by ruling that the agency was empowered to make such determinations and the legislature could address that authority if it wanted.

The court did not say bumble bees were fish. I know it's fun to think that's what happened but it didn't.

California, land of nuts, fruits, flakes and weepy eyed Liberals.