 For the past few years, government officials and agricultural groups in California have been fighting over the question, are bees fish? In May, the California Court of Appeal for the Third District finally ruled on the matter. They are. Bees are fish. The California Endangered Species Act prohibits the import, export, possession, purchase, sale, or killing of roughly 250 plant and animal species. Birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, plants, and fish are on the list, but insects aren't. So how did state officials at the request of environmental groups end up getting those bumblebees added? By declaring them fish, and the appeals court agreed. So what is a fish? According to the California Endangered Species Act, the word refers to a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals. The keyword there is invertebrate. Because they don't have backbones, the appeals court ruled that bumblebees could reasonably be designated as fish, since the word is considered a term of art, meaning it has a definition within a specific field that diverges from common usage. A problem with this argument is that it seriously undercuts the idea that law is supposed to be clear and accessible to ordinary people, notes George Mason University law professor Ilya Somen. The average person has a particular understanding of what the word fish means, and when reading the law would be hard-pressed to figure out that harming bees is a no-no. And yet, any farmer who harms or kills one of these protected bees could be punished with fines or have their pesticide permits rescinded. And, by the way, farmers will have to distinguish the four protected types of bees from the 21 other bumblebee species that can be found in California. The court's ruling might also empower activists to further stretch the legal definitions of the California Endangered Species Act as they try to get more critters protected. The California Fish and Game Commission may list any invertebrate as an endangered or threatened species if the invertebrate meets the requirements of the relevant statutes the court ruled. Ladybugs, scorpions, moths, butterflies, maybe someday they can be fished too.