[ahmed_ds]

Does this actually hold merit?

Some countries gave legal entity/personhood status to rivers and gave legal rights to curb water pollution. Not much has happened from those declaration. I wonder if these kind public awareness verdicts from courts would have any kind of significant impact.

[jffry]

The topline of the decision is about one page of doublespaced text and is quite readable: https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C093542.PDF

The short answer is that the headline is rubbish. A law originally covering only fish was amended by the legislature to expand what it covered by redefining the meaning of "fish" in the rest of the statute, which is simpler than amending each mention of "fish" to a big long list.

One of the categories in that list was "invertebrates", and this court ruling simply found that non-aquatic invertebrates are included, and therefore bees are included.

But it gets more clicks to say "bees are now legally fish in california"