What creature lives in the water, is typically caught by worms on a hook, and can be eaten by Catholics on Fridays during Lent?
If you guessed bees, you might be qualified to serve as a judge in California.
A three-judge panel in the Golden State ruled that bees qualified as fish for the purposes of the state’s Endangered Species Act. The California Fish and Game Commission moved to protect four species of bumblebees in 2019. Farmers, who have been burdened the most by the state’s expansive environmental regulations, reasonably objected. A district court took the side of the farmers, but the state appellate court saw things differently.
“We generally give words their usual and ordinary meaning,” the court ruled. “Where, however, the Legislature has provided a technical definition of a word, we construe the term of art in accordance with the technical meaning. In performing this function, we are tasked with liberally construing the Act to effectuate its remedial purpose.”
It seems that “liberally” construing the law means that bees can be fish, even if it is biologically impossible for them to be fish. Sound familiar?
The court had previously decided that “fish” also meant “terrestrial mollusk.” Such a leap was used to justify the inclusion of a species of snail, which the court then used to extend fish protections to bees. Farmers would have had a better chance of winning their case if they declared that they too were fish. Perhaps the court would have even agreed.
California’s exhaustive (and exhausting) environmental policies are an incoherent mess, causing the state’s water distribution problems and sidelining progressive passion projects such as high-speed rail. Then again, who’s to say we aren’t all fish, with no need for trains or agriculture? California judges certainly won’t.
