The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: Millet on April 16, 2021, 10:56:45 PM
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The publication Citrus Industry. Net had an article on...An attempt to place bees under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by reclassifying them as fish has been blocked by California Judge James Arguelles.
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(https://i.postimg.cc/wtQBRvCg/maxresdefault.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/wtQBRvCg)
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People are not thinking clearly. With all the money spent on lawyers fees to argue this case they probably could have made significant gains toward protecting the rare bees that they were concerned about.
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Lol why fish? Was this only in state of Cali or on the federal level?
And what interest does the opposing side have in denying this attempt?
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I read the article when it first came out and this is how I understood things at the time. There are a couple rare bees in California that certain groups want to protect. Insects can't be classified as an endangered species under the current law. The only invertebrates that can be classified as endangered are aquatic. Thus the attempt to correlate them to aquatic invertibrates. While these bees may be worthy of protecting, I believe that the judge made the right choice. First, if people do not agree with a law there are ways to have it changed under our legal system. The law is clear regarding what species qualify for classification as endangered. Second, classifying insects as endangerd has some incredibly wide reaching ramifications. Killing one of these bees would have the same consequences as killing a manatee. In other words you could potentially go to prison for spraying neem on your tomatoes or for planting a cover crop or plant that produced nectar harmful to the bees (some kinds of eucalyptus come to mind), or for negligently placing a hive of honey bees with a harmful bee diseases in an area where these rare bees contracted the disease through shared nectaring, or even for driving you vehicle through an area where these bees could potentially be present at a speed which proved fatal to the bee upon contact with your vehicle. I see many potential problems.
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Insects can't be classified as an endangered species under the current law
Seems like a strange situation and rather large oversight ??
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Insects can't be classified as an endangered species under the current law
Seems like a strange situation and rather large oversight ??
To be more clear, insects can be classified as endangered under the national Endangered Species Act, but the petition to classify was not made at that level. The petition was made to classify the species under the state of California's ESA, which does not include a category for insects.