Can we talk about how much less firefly activity I've seen in my backyard since 2010?

Used to be dozens of them every June night in my little patch of Illinois, now I'm lucky if I spot three all summer, and I think it's the pesticide runoff from the new housing development half a mile away that did it. Anyone else notice a drop in insects where they grew up?

2 comments

2 Comments

wright.jesse6d ago

Blame the streetlights too, they switched to those bright white LEDs around here around that same time and I barely see any moths or beetles anymore. The light pollution scrambles their navigation and makes them easy targets for bats and birds before they can breed. Seems like everything stacks against the little bugs once the human infrastructure gets rolling.

jamie7946d ago

My buddy Matt lives out past Mill Creek and he told me he hasn't seen a single luna moth on his porch in three years, used to see a dozen every spring. He thinks it's the streetlights too, his whole neighborhood switched to those white LEDs a couple years back and now it's like a ghost town for bugs at night. He said the bats still show up but there's just nothing for them to eat anymore.