Shanghai's unique firefly culture could be facing extinction(2)

Deteriorating environment

Apart from the disturbance that tourists bring Jiang believes that the decline of the fireflies there is caused by what he described "the disappearance of nature" and the worsening of the village environment. There are fewer clean water areas around the village with many of the natural ponds now used as waste dumps and heavily polluted.

Modernization is another factor. More and more land has been taken over and developed for urbanization and part of the riverbank has been concreted over - this has affected the breeding patterns of the fireflies and last year none were seen round these places.

New and brighter lighting systems in the village's many recently renovated homes have disturbed mating rituals and breeding as well.

Professor Fu visited Cenbu village this year only to find that the number of fireflies has continued to decrease from low numbers the previous year. He told the Metro Express he feared they might be on the verge of extinction.

"When the number of fireflies drops below 1,000, the gene pool shrinks and this can lead to extinction. A recovery would take at least five years," Fu said.

He suggested that authorities follow the example set at Nanjing's Zijin Mountain which has established a firefly protection zone and set up a firefly protection zone at Dianshan Lake. Within this zone, Fu said, the local government may implement sensor-controlled outdoor lighting to reduce light pollution - a move that has the backing of the chair of the Shanghai Wild Bird Society, Yao Li.

Jiang explained that the key to protecting fireflies lay in protecting the habitat, specifically the water and land the fireflies needed. "The establishment of a protection zone will bring a positive result for the environment, and therefore the species."

The difficulty, Jiang said, lay in whether the village authorities understood how serious the situation had become and were motivated to create a protection zone. "The approach to protecting wildlife in Qingpu district has always been very passive, let alone when it concerns insects like fireflies that are not listed as protected animals," he said.

A romantic symbol

Fireflies are also part of Chinese folklore and dating companies often stage "firefly" events in gardens and parks right before Qixi Festival, the Chinese Valentine's Day.

The firefly is a traditional romantic symbol in China - it appeared and reappeared in classical poetry and one of the best-known verses was the Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet Du Mu's (803-852) poem Qi Xi, which talked about teenage girls watching the stars while playing with fireflies with their fans.

A promotional event in Shanghai last year needed 5,000 fireflies and all over China there are similar activities - some involving more than 10,000 fireflies at a time. It seems to be a lucrative market.

Though the firefly dealers claim that they only sell specially bred flies raised in small towns, Fu said the expertise to breed fireflies was not easily found and he suspected most of the fireflies sold had been caught outside the city.

He said these release events could seriously harm the ecology. The released fireflies, he said, would either die immediately if they could not adapt to the new environment, or if they adapted they would be intruders on the local fireflies and other species, and could affect the ecological balance.

A lot of Chinese media have criticized these events in the past and this year, so far, there is only one romantic firefly event planned for Shanghai.

But the curious and the ecologically indifferent can still buy fireflies from the country's leading shopping website and this is completely legal. One Shanghai dealer charges 399 yuan ($64.20) for 100 fireflies.

Most vendors promote fireflies as "romantic gifts for girlfriends" and one Hangzhou vendor is popular, with 226 people buying some over the past 30 days.

The Global Times talked to several of these dealers and all spoke enthusiastically about the beauty of the fireflies. One said he had proposed to his wife successfully because he used fireflies and the others talked of the magic the creatures had worked on wives, girlfriends and daughters.

Almost all said they released the fireflies after enjoying their flickering lights for a while. When asked whether they were aware of the potential damage they might be causing they said that wasn't as important as the happiness of their loved ones.