Fishy Emanations

Over 100 years ahead of its time

Lawyers sometimes use logic that's so convoluted that the results seem absurd to us common folk.

Headline: Yes, bumblebees may be fish, California Supreme Court agrees

a state appeals court ruled in May that [the California endangered species act] was flexible enough to allow the state Fish and Game Commission to consider protecting four imperiled species of bees under the category of “fish.”

Sure, it seems crazy, dear reader, but what you're missing is an intermediate species, the Trinity bristle snail: [bold added]

In the 3-0 ruling, Justice Ronald Robie acknowledged that a fish, “as the term is commonly understood ... lives in aquatic environments.” But he said state lawmakers, when they approved the current law in 1984, knew that the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which enforced the law, had found that it protected invertebrates living on land.

The Legislature “could have expressed disagreement” with the department, but instead expressly extended protection to all creatures covered by the law before 1985, including the Trinity bristle snail, Robie said. By the same logic, he said, the law must now be interpreted to allow protection of bumblebees.

Because of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, California has claimed that its jurisprudence is superior.

Well, that didn't last long. Ruminations over a simple mollusc have made the California judiciary a laughing stock.