Is the Fire Going Out?

Step out into a summer night in the next few weeks, and chances are you will not see what used to be a common sight: fireflies or lightning bugs. Biologists say that the fire is going out.

Fireflies. They are a fond memory many of us have from warm summer evenings in childhood. Their cheery glow drew our attention, and some of us even captured a few of these tiny creatures in a jar. Whether we called them fireflies, lightning bugs or glowworms, we saw their tiny lights as one of the marks of summertime.

So now let me ask you, when did you last see a bunch of fireflies? You probably haven’t thought about that before, but now that you do, chances are your answer is something like “It’s been a long time” or “I can’t remember when.” [NOTE: Here you could show option two of the YouTube clip. See page 39.]

That’s not because you’ve become less observant. While there’s no way to tag and count insect populations, experts think that fireflies are dwindling, perhaps by as much as 70 percent in recent years, and lots of anecdotal evidence supports that claim — so much so that more than 100 entomologists and biologists ...