Is releasing fireflies romantic or cruel?

"The silver candlelight in autumn cools the painting screen, and the light silk fan flutters the fireflies." This ancient poem is used to describe the daily life of watching fireflies on summer nights. For a long period of history, fireflies, as a very common species, overlapped greatly with people's living areas. They can be seen almost everywhere at night in fields, land, mountains, forests, ponds and other areas.

Firefly release activities are common

However, with the development of the economy and the expansion of people's living areas, especially the urbanization process and the worsening of industrial pollution and light pollution, the habitat of the tiny fireflies has been seriously disturbed and destroyed. The once common fireflies have gradually disappeared in many places.

Therefore, in recent years, some cities and businesses have seized on people's curiosity and nostalgia, and have held various forms of firefly exhibitions or activities to attract tourists, earn revenue or promote products. These cities or businesses often seem to be "very generous", and basically start with 100,000 fireflies released at a time, some reach 500,000, and some even claim to reach 1 million. Of course, these activities did attract a large number of tourists before they were held, but this kind of activity has always been questioned and opposed by many people, especially environmentalists.

For example, in July 2016, a park in Nanjing planned to release 100,000 fireflies, but the event was cancelled after being boycotted. In June 2019, Shanghai's "Zhoupu Flower Sea" once prepared the "First Million Fireflies Fairy Starry Sky Exhibition", but many people later opposed it and the event was eventually cancelled. For another example, "SPACE PLUS (Changsha Store)" located in Chaoyang Square, Furong District, Changsha City, was originally scheduled to release 100,000 fireflies on July 24, 2021, but was later cancelled for various reasons.

Recently, a firefly release event was held in Xuzhou, Jiangsu. The promotional information of the event showed that 50,000 fireflies would be released, and the ticket price was 59 yuan. Some participants later said that when the release took place that day, there were only a few fireflies on the scene, and the outdoor lights were turned off for a long time before the release event began. Although it was already night, the weather was still very hot, and the scene was crowded with people. From the picture, you can see that there were huge crowds of people, and many people were holding nets in their hands, hoping to catch some on the scene and take them home.

Given that the actual experience was very different from what the merchant advertised, people basically didn't see any fireflies and only saw people and the internet. Most of the people who participated in the event were very disappointed, so they refunded their tickets on site or online.

Fireflies are very delicate

So, what is our attitude towards the firefly release activity? Why is it opposed by many people, including professionals?

In fact, the domestic "firefly release" activities first started around 2008, and began to show explosive growth in 2015. Although some years showed a downward trend in the following years, there has been a clear recovery trend in some areas in the past two or three years. In order to attract people's attention, some urban businesses often use the guise of "popular science", "rural experience", "artificial cultivation" and "sweet romance" to try to make people willingly spend money.

There are about 2,000 species of fireflies in the world, and about 200-300 species are distributed in my country. No matter what kind of firefly, it will go through four stages in its life: egg, nymph, pupa and adult. It is a complete metamorphosis insect. At any stage of development, it has very strict requirements on the ecological environment of its habitat. It cannot survive in areas that are too hot, too cold, too dry or too wet. In addition, it is not suitable for its survival in areas with sparse vegetation, polluted water, stale air or light pollution. Therefore, fireflies are also regarded as environmental indicator insects. According to their distribution area and number, they can directly reflect the quality of the ecological environment in the area.

At present, with the development of economy and society, and the increasing use of resources and energy by humans, there are high-rise buildings, factories, countless cars, bright lights in urban areas, and more and more pollutants are emitted into the environment by humans. Therefore, urban areas are not suitable for the survival of fireflies at all. This is why we cannot see fireflies in cities.

The situation in some rural areas is not optimistic now. The movement of some factories that emit pollutants to rural areas, the use of large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides, pollutants emitted by livestock and poultry farming, the development and occupation of forests and grasslands, the worsening degree of black and smelly water bodies, etc., have also made the ecological environment of these rural areas "unfriendly" to fireflies. This is also an important reason why the number of fireflies has been drastically reduced or even disappeared in many rural areas.

On the contrary, in some areas of my country, due to the good preservation and restoration of the natural ecological environment, biodiversity has been greatly improved, and the number of fireflies has almost shown an annual growth trend, the most famous of which is in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan and other areas. Therefore, if we can no longer see fireflies in cities or rural areas, it is a warning to us to a certain extent, indicating that we need to spend a lot of effort and energy to protect the ecological environment.

What impact will it have if fireflies are released in cities?

The main reasons why releasing fireflies in cities is not recommended, I think, can be attributed to the following points: First, fireflies are highly dependent on the environment, and the urban environment is not suitable for their survival. After being released, large numbers of fireflies cannot find a suitable habitat in a short period of time, let alone a stable food source, so they will die quickly after being released.

Second, it can cause regional ecosystem disorder. It is impossible for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of fireflies to all be artificially bred. After all, they are "delicate" species, and the cost of artificial breeding is too high. Therefore, it is inevitable to buy a large number of wild species at low prices from some illegal vendors. This will cause the ecosystem in the original firefly habitat to be unbalanced, and it will bring a fatal blow to the reproduction of the firefly population in the habitat that is difficult to recover.

The third is the threat to human health. Some fireflies carry different types of viruses and bacteria in their bodies, and some fireflies' body fluids contain toxins that are harmful to the human body. If fireflies are released in large numbers, the chances of direct or indirect contact between humans and fireflies will increase, thus posing a potential risk to health.

At present, some species of fireflies are on the verge of extinction, but as a group, fireflies have not yet been listed as protected wild animals. Therefore, many people suggest that some endangered firefly species can be listed as protected animals, and laws and regulations can be used to restrict various capture, exhibition and release behaviors, so as to reduce the impact on the firefly population, while maintaining the stability of the ecosystem and ultimately reducing the threat to humans.

So, although the tiny fireflies look very beautiful, human intervention to make them passively display this beauty to us may seem romantic for a while to us humans, but it is undoubtedly very cruel to the fireflies themselves and the ecological environment.

Source: Cosmic Decoding