It should be nobody's business to tamper with nature
Commercial shows featuring the release of exotic species has conservationists in a flap
Last week, thousands of people gathered in a sport centre in Guangzhou's university area to behold "the light of nature" as some 7,000 fireflies were set loose in the darkness.
The event, sponsored by a Beijing-based company that breeds and sells the insects, was billed as an environmentally friendly way for residents to glimpse country living as the fireflies filled the sport centre like "fluorescent glitter".
Deng Wenjie, a resident in his 30s, paid for tickets and took his daughter to the event. "I used to watch fireflies light up my yard on hot summer nights when I was a child," Deng said. "They were so beautiful, mysterious, and magical. It was a lot of fun for children to spot them and catch them. But now it's rare to see them in Guangzhou. I paid for the tickets and took my daughter. She's already seven years old and still has no idea how they shine."
The sentiment is hard to fault, but carting in boxes of insects from several provinces away - for a supposed green cause - has angered conservationists.
"We have no idea why the provincial authorities still allow this kind of commercial activity and even mislead the public into thinking that it is beneficial to nature," said Zhu Xuejun , secretary general of the Shenzhen Green Sources Environmental Protection Volunteers Association. "Residents were not just paying to see the fireflies glow but also paying to shorten their lives."
Biologists believe fireflies' night-time bioluminescence allows them to find mates. They can notify potential partners with a long glow, quick flash or steady pulse of light. Entire swarms have been observed to synchronise their flashes, in a complex cycle tied to weather, diet and even altitude. But the thousands packed into the stadium were trapped, Zhu notes, and in all likelihood died without ever having mated.
"Besides, we believe many of the fireflies were caught in the wild in Guangxi," Zhu said. Such harvesting would have a "severe impact" on the insects' reproduction cycles.