OT Court ruling: Bees classified as Fish

[waterfell]

With regard to the recent discussions about regulations and administrative law, I thought this was interesting.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/06/us/california-bees-fish-court…

(CNN) A fishy ruling from California: A California court has ruled bees can legally be considered fish under specific circumstances.

The ruling, released May 31, reversed an earlier judgment which found bumblebees could not be considered “fish” under the California Endangered Species Act.

“The issue presented here is whether the bumblebee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls within the definition of fish, as that term is used in the definitions of endangered species in section 2062, threatened species in section 2067, and candidate species (i.e., species being considered for listing as endangered or threatened species) in section 2068 of the Act,” wrote California’s Third District Court of Appeal in its ruling.

I understand it is important to protect bees, since much of the population is apparently threatened. Threatened by what, I don’t know. But if the problem gets bad enough, it could have macroeconomic impacts on the food supply.

That said, this court ruling is rather ridiculous at first glance.

• Pete

[WendyBG]

<I understand it is important to protect bees, since much of the population is apparently threatened. Threatened by what, I don’t know. >

Habitat loss, chemicals such as pesticides, parasites and diseases.

As a volunteer citizen-scientist with the Pacific Northwest Bumblebee Atlas, I am involved with counting native bumblebee species (Bombus spp.). The honeybee (Apis mellifera), while very important for commercial pollination and honey production, is an imported European, not native, bee species.

Bumblebees are especially important for pollination of plants that release pollen when “buzz” pollinated (rapid vibration by the bee flight muscles without moving the wings). Bumblebees can do this but honeybees can’t. Tomatoes are an important crop that benefit from buzz pollination. Fuzzy, well-insulated bumblebees can fly in cold weather while honeybees can’t.

The terrible loss of honeybee colonies is called “colony collapse disorder.” This is easy to observe because a honeybee hive has tens of thousands of bees.
https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-di…

It’s not as easy to observe bumblebees because the hives are below ground and small (usually hundred of bees or less, not tens of thousands). Volunteers have been organized to count bumblebees to see if they are suffering similar losses as honeybees.

The sad story of how people triggered the collapse of the Western bumblebee (Bombus occidentalis) is told here.
https://xerces.org/endangered-species/species-profiles/at-ri…

I have caught a handful of the rare Western Bumblebee in my studies on the remote Olympic Peninsula. (No harm comes to the bees.) It’s really a thrill to find that the population still exists here. But it’s sad to spend an afternoon in a large commercial lavender farm and see only 2 Western bumblebees among hundreds of more common bumblebees (B. vosnesenskii) and thousands of honeybees.

Collapse of the bee populations (honeybee, bumblebee, mason bees and others) would indeed have Macroeconomic impact, since they pollinate all our fruits, vegetables and nuts. Grains are wind-pollinated, but man does not live by bread alone.

Wendy

[JimA759s]

It might be useful to show the definition of ‘fish’ that the court was working under.

“ ‘[f]ish’ means a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate,
amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals.” (Stats. 2015, ch. 154, § 5.)"

from: https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C093542.PDF

JimA

[tim443]

Thank you for recommending this post to our Best of feature.

…

I understand it is important to protect bees, since much of the population is apparently threatened. Threatened by what, I don’t know. But if the problem gets bad enough, it could have macroeconomic impacts on the food supply.

That said, this court ruling is rather ridiculous at first glance.

- Pete

True, however with watching US news in the mornings and listening to a lot of “news” that floats across the border to our Canuck stations … I’ve come to believe there is a lot of really nutty laws and other stuff going on the books south of our border over the last many years. Not all of it comes from California?

Seriously I find it amazing that anyone is able to keep track of any of it let alone stay out of jail by following the rules in place? }};-@

Tim <I suppose 51 Constitutions doesn’t help?>

https://www.screenandreveal.com/incarceration-statistics/#:~….

by Ivana 16.12.2021

Incarceration Statistics

The US incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, keeping nearly 2.3 million locked in federal and state prisons and jails. Crime rates have little to do with the rise of the prison population in the last four decades in the US. What happened between 1980 and now for the prison population to rise by 500%? Is it to keep the general public safe? Dive into these detailed incarceration statistics to get a big picture view of why the land of the free keeps so many people behind bars.