A pesticide and many unseen victims
Fipronil and other pesticides have been associated with severe harm to bees and other pollinators. The deaths may be dispersed, difficult to count, and treated as an external effect of agricultural production, but they concern innumerable individual animals as well as the ecosystems that depend on them.
The legal problem is not only technical. It is also one of visibility: who speaks for wild animals when their losses are not easily translated into a property claim or a commercial calculation?
Responsibility for collective harm
Environmental and administrative law can regulate chemicals and impose conditions on their use, but effective protection requires monitoring, precaution, transparency, and remedies capable of addressing harm before it becomes irreversible.
Pollinators should not be protected only because they serve agriculture. Their welfare and survival make a stronger legal response necessary, including mechanisms for attributing responsibility when pesticide practices cause mass mortality.