this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2025
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I did this last year and saw twice as many fireflies.
Which means I saw six total all summer.
The suburbs suck.
Yeah this is drinking straws vs private jets.
Growing up in the suburbs we raked all the leaves and packed them in plastic bags which were then picked up as trash (no recycling back then). We had hundreds of fireflies everywhere.
Today I'm on 3.5 acres, half of which I don't mow at all and the other half I don't rake the leaves. But there are still fewer fireflies than 40 years ago.
There are fewer everything. I've commented on the ecosystem collapse many time, don't have the energy any longer.
At least my yard is coming back. Our house is the reason the block has frogs, dragonflies, etc.
The bees and Monarch butterflies and Hummingbirds know where I live, which is about the best I can do locally.
Man! Now that you mention it I haven't seen monarch butterflies in my area for a few years now. We used to see thousands of them every late summer when they start their migration to Mexico. I feel sad now. :(
Plant milkweed. They’ll find it.
There are a couple monarch mimics that will also come to them (which is cool because they mimic each other to make their poison more effective, instead of pretending to be poisonous).
poisonous butterflies 🦋 ?? nooo
Those orange colored things are now old and not actual. Basically just a genetic fraud that only exist because most people can't tell the difference and half aren't even aware there is one. The real Monarch's home was destroyed years ago.
beep boop
BMO will help but I don't think he can make an entire forest to replace their home fast enough.
He could prolly clone them because I'm sure some folks have them pegged on a board somewhere.
Still doesn't stop Agent Orange right now.
Lmao you’re a bot
That's all you got? You can't read. Bots don't get innuendo and subref. So you're probably a hyprocrit.
They didnt get the adventures time référence.
I got the “reference” but it’s pretty evident the content of their replies aren’t cogent beyond some context prodding.
So ai assisted troll ?
Idk about TROLL necessarily, I’d bet it’s more to make the account look like there is a person behind it for when it pops out to make very opinionated arguments about something.
Ha I see.
I don't fuck with AI. I write my own shit. I think different than most and sure, I fish for those who can, like dolphins.
Either you get it or don't but just because you're human doesn't other people can't think differently than you. Communication is even more difficult when trying to read over the internet.
Opportunities persist and so does Kharma. Even AI can't beat that. It will always work for Kharma just like every human will too regardless of their thought, purpose and even their will.
OK you do you.
beep boop
Same here. Used to get whole families of deer, rabbits, hedgehogs, squirrels etc eating our gardens goodies. Nowadays its lucky to catch a single magpie nibbling on an apple. Animals today are so damn picky. /s
The decline in insect populations is so bad even Jeremy Clarkson is trying to fight it.
Isn't he a farmer now or something?
That's how you know it's really bad.
It's all the pesticides we use in gardens and agriculture. It's in our air water everywhere decimating all kinds of insects.
Ok but part of this is because of what we were doing back then, so it isn’t quite the same. Yes there are larger things at play BUT these things you do locally on your 3.5 acres can have a huge impact.
But the problem I'm experiencing is that doing the "best" isn't helping much at all. It's like telling people that putting some greens in their aquarium will help their fish while at the same time the water in the aquarium is bleach.
Ok but the problem in this analogy is that collectively we were all pouring bleach into the aquarium, the fix is to collectively stop.
It won’t happen immediately and it won’t go back to where it was for a long time.
Yes there are larger factors at play but this is one of those scenarios where your local action has an actual impact that is noticeable.
You’re not wrong that you alone won’t solve it and the best you can do alone won’t fix it, but doing what you’re doing is closer to not adding your bleach to the fish tank but instead letting it have some water.
A doubling is still a big deal, though. You made a difference! Imagine if that were to keep up throughout the neighborhood.
It’s a far cry from when I lived in the woods and could walk around on a dark night just from the light of fireflies.
When I was a child in the 70s we'd visit my great-grandparents in Indianapolis and the lightning bugs were like that. Image, a heavily polluted, major metro area had more lightning bugs than anywhere I've seen since.
I’m living in the same place I grew up and when I was a kid we could catch a couple dozen a night, enough to fill a jar and read by.
I had a sergeant who sneaked up on some troopies based on the light from the unshielded radium pips on someone's wristwatch.
(Why yes. He was 22me regiment; why do you ask?)
But, point is, you didn't take a flashlight because the light was enough, and your eyes adjusted and made it enough, because it was enough.
Anyway, 10 years of doubling is 1000x. 6ooo fireflies would be cool.
If I’m still in the suburbs in a decade I’ll kill myself.
I’m fucking back off to the boonies at the first opportunity
That could very well just be early stages. Very few fireflies means not many to reproduce
conversely, I saw tons last year in the suburbs!
this year was wasps, though