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I'd really like to know how fireflies/lightning bugs have been impacted. It's anecdotal, but it seems to me there has been a precipitous fall in their populati

by bmurphy1976 8y ago

I'd really like to know how fireflies/lightning bugs have been impacted. It's anecdotal, but it seems to me there has been a precipitous fall in their populations as well here in the midwest. I remember childhood evenings filled with them, they were everywhere, our grass was constantly crawling with them during the day. Now, I rarely ever see any during the day and at night I can count all the flashes. It's not all my imagination. My cousin lives next to a farm. They have a couple acres they turned into a natural prairie. You can see the difference, the prairie lights up with activity at night, the farm is dead. A flash here or there is all you can see. Absolute stark contrast to the farm fields and well manicured laws of their neighbors. EDIT: I found a link: https://www.firefly.org/why-are-fireflies-disappearing.html https://www.firefly.org/why-are-fireflies-disappearing.html

christophilus 8y ago
My brother’s yard and mine positively swarm with fireflies. More than I remember as a child. It’s because we don’t mow our yards much, and we allow large patches of wild local prairie like plants. Our neighboring yards have almost no insect life at all. So yes, our obsession with trim, grass lawns is a big problem.
- bmurphy1976 8y ago
  The weird thing is I grew up in a neighborhood with obsessively trimmed grass. There was still no shortage of fireflies 30 years ago. While our monoculture lawns are certainly part of the problem, it seems there's more to it than that. They are losing on multiple fronts including our chemical warfare on the local environment and various climate change related issues.
geerlingguy 8y ago
We used to have them every few feet when I was a kid (enough that any given night we could catch a few in a jar, observe, then release), but some nights I see maybe one or two in an entire night. My kids don't know the joy of playing with lightning bugs that I knew :(

christophilus 8y ago

My brother’s yard and mine positively swarm with fireflies. More than I remember as a child. It’s because we don’t mow our yards much, and we allow large patches of wild local prairie like plants. Our neighboring yards have almost no insect life at all. So yes, our obsession with trim, grass lawns is a big problem.

bmurphy1976 8y ago
The weird thing is I grew up in a neighborhood with obsessively trimmed grass. There was still no shortage of fireflies 30 years ago. While our monoculture lawns are certainly part of the problem, it seems there's more to it than that. They are losing on multiple fronts including our chemical warfare on the local environment and various climate change related issues.

geerlingguy 8y ago

We used to have them every few feet when I was a kid (enough that any given night we could catch a few in a jar, observe, then release), but some nights I see maybe one or two in an entire night. My kids don't know the joy of playing with lightning bugs that I knew :(