Firefly exhibition called off due to environmental concerns

A firefly exhibition that was scheduled to be held at Zhoupu Flower Sea in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area from June 29th to August 4th has been cancelled because of environmental concerns, according to The Beijing News.

The event, which had planned to release around 1 million fireflies at night to create a visual spectacle, has triggered widespread discussion online, with netizens, environmental protection volunteers and experts opposing the idea.

“Many fireflies are hurt or even killed after being captured, transported and finally released in a place that is not suitable for their survival,” Yue Hua, an environmental protection volunteer, told The Beijing News.

The Pudong New Area Ecological and Environmental Bureau also weighed in on this matter, saying that the release of exotic fireflies should be officially approved by the forestry department.

There was also a debate about how the fireflies were obtained. The event organizers have claimed that the fireflies were artificially bred. In an interview with The Paper, Fu Xinhua, an associate professor at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, Hubei said that it is impossible to breed nearly 1 million fireflies within such a short period.

Jin Xingbao, an insect expert in Shanghai, said that capturing so many fireflies from the countryside would also pose a threat to the local ecological environment.

“The decrease in fireflies will influence the food chain and further destroy the balance of ecological system as well as their natural habitat,” he told The Paper.

“Locking these insects up in a certain area for exhibition also teaches the wrong things to children. Such an event does not demonstrate respect for life,” Jin added.

This is not the first time that the commercialization of fireflies has sparked controversy.

In 2015, the Changsha Wildlife Conservation Association wrote an online letter accusing organizers of firefly exhibitions of causing the extinction of certain species and affecting ecology. The online letter led to the cancellation of several exhibitions in Shanghai and Wuhan.

Tang Xiaofan contributed to the story.