A California appeals court has ruled that bumblebees can be legally classified as fish, and therefore protected under the State's Endangered Species Act.
KIRO 7 says the Act grants protections to any bird, mammal, fish, amphibian or reptile whose status is threatened.
Seven agricultural groups, including the California Farm Bureau Federation, challenged whether bees could be legally protected under the law, saying that insects aren’t listed.
Reuters says groups asked the Fish and Game Commission in 2018 to add four species of bumblebee to the endangered species list.
The commission then named all four as “candidate species” which offered temporary protections while the animals were considered for placement on the list, which has now happened.
The court, in its ruling, said that “because the definition of fish in Section 45 includes invertebrates, and because bumblebees are invertebrates, bumblebees may be listed under the CESA as fish”.
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