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Firefly numbers up this season: experts

It is the height of firefly season, said Chen Tsan-jong (陳燦榮), a firefly chaser for more than fifteen years, describing this time of year as "explosive" in terms of the number of fireflies.

According to Chen's observations, there are double or triple the number of fireflies nationwide compared with previous seasons, with even greater growth in some areas.

He has written three books on the subject of fireflies and regularly makes records of their activity in Yilan, Hualien, Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei among other places.

This year, he said, he found hundreds of fireflies in locales where he had only recorded ten or twenty in his records from previous years.

Ho Chien-jong (何健鎔), the secretary of the Firefly Preservation Society also reported a rise in numbers this year, despite the difficulties of ascertaining accurate numbers.

The warm winter followed by plentiful spring showers might have caused the firefly population explosion, Chen said.

Mild, moist conditions cause a higher number of snails because of the increased amount of rotting vegetation for them to feed on. Fireflies in turn feed on snails.

However, Wu Chia-hsiung (吳加雄), a graduate student at National Taiwan University's Institute of Entomology, explained that all insects are affected by temperature and develop fastest when it is between 20oC and 30oC. Growth decelerates if the temperature either goes above or below that range. Whether this year's bountiful firefly season is connected to a warm winter requires further verification, Wu said.

What does seem clear, Wu said, is that the warm winter has brought an early firefly season. Black-winged fireflies ordinarily appear at the end of March, but this year they were spotted in Chiayi in the middle of February.

There are more than 50 varieties of fireflies in Taiwan, meaning that even though April and May are the best months for spotting fireflies, they are visible in some localities as late as August and September, and even in the depth of winter.

Older Taiwanese hold fond memories of the "golden-fire ladies," Chen said, but with the overdevelopment of their environment and the ubiquity of modern lighting, firefly spotting has become much harder.

To encourage a firefly revival, schools, communities and farms have worked to reduce pesticide usage and light pollution.

Firefly spotting has also become big business, as a type of ecological tourism.

Chen said that the earliest destination to offer firefly spotting was Tungshih Forest Park back in 1990.

In recent years, other locations have also offered "firefly seasons," attracting up to ten thousand visitors in some popular spots in a single night. However, he added, it is not necessary to spend a lot of money to see fireflies -- even residents of Taipei can find fireflies in secluded areas near the capital city.

Yeh Ruoh-lan (葉若蘭) is the proprieter of Ruoh-lan Villa in Chiayi where tens of thousands of fireflies can be seen on April evenings. The villa was fully booked for this month by January this year. Some visitors come every year to see the fireflies, she said, others are moved to tears by the sight.
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