This video prompts the question, "What is killing the fireflies?"
After watching this video please collect fireflies in your city, town or backyard and make your own photographic or video record of any unusual behavior. Are the fireflies you collect also exhibiting unusual behavior? Are foggers spaying for mosquitoes before or after you watch for fireflies? If so, please collect specimens and photograph or video tape dying fireflies; this is the best way to document what is happening to fireflies. Also by collecting and submitting specimens for identification to drfirefly@byteland.org, a record may be made for the future analysis of specimens to determine their exposure to toxins. This record may be vital to actually proving that fireflies are being killed by toxic chemicals in oil-based sprays. And guess who profits from oil-based sprays? Big oil and the chemical companies!
Unless firefly specimens are collected and a record is made, there is no physical evident to prove what is actually killing fireflies. When you have a dead body, be it human or firefly, you can perform an autopsy, or a "fireflytopsy" to determine the cause of death. But without a body, those who are responsible for the extermination of fireflies go free. And those who are proposing to investigate the extermination of fireflies who do not collect accurate data, including firefly specimens, are not doing good science and may make inaccurate, false reports.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not accusing anyone of contributing to the disappearance of fireflies, simply because specimens were not collected. I am simply offering to help those individuals who are serious about their firefly studies and want to know the truth. If those relatively few who are serious about their studies want to submit specimens and/or photographs, they are invited to do so. I would like to obtain preserved specimens for identification. Those who wish to voluntarily collect a few specimens from healthy firefly populations may do so. This will have no significant impact upon healthy firefly populations, but it may contribute to the significance, accuracy and merit of reports that firefly observers are making. It may also help determine what is actually causing the disappearance of fireflies.
All you have without the collection of a firefly and its identification, is a UFO, unidentified firefly object or observation. And without a firefly body, you will not be able to determine the cause of death. If one such observation is a UFO, then thousands of such observations are equally UFOs -- and cause of death remains speculative. Only those observations which are confirmed by physical evidence have a high degree of merit, and only when a firefly specimen is collected may cause of death, if it was not natural, be determined. Hence those few individuals who want to learn how to do good science and who take their firefly studies serious, may want to go that extra step and collect specimens. Unless that is done then you have BAD science, especially since you are studying insects and what is causing their unnatural death.
As for the concept of a "citizen scientist" that is a bogus concept. Everyone who was born, naturalized or applied for US citizenship after immigrating to this country and received such citizenship is a US citizen; but NOT everyone who is a citizen is a scientist. Watching fireflies does NOT make anyone a scientist, and certainly does not make them an entomologist. A scientist is someone who uses systematics and the scientific method; when it comes to studying insects and their behavior this includes identifying the insects they are observing. Certainly a firefly is a firefly, just as a rose is a rose. But those who want their firefly studies or observations to have merit and be taken seriously, may want to have their fireflies identified. Also, collecting firefly specimens, photographing fireflies and making videos of fireflies, is the best way to document what is killing fireflies. When you have the dead body of a human or a firefly, you then have the essential and necessary key to establish the cause of death. Otherwise all you have is a data set based upon UFOs, unidentified firefly objects.
Certainly this fact is known by those who are scientists and who may be collecting data of "firefly sightings." Yet if the goal is to determine whether or not fireflies are disappearing and what may be the cause of such disappearance, why do not those making the study insist on collecting specimens and making analysis to determine the cause of death? What are they trying to cover up? Who is sponsoring their studies?
By collecting specimens and/or making controlled experiments using known and identified species of fireflies, the reasons for the disappearance of fireflies may be established. The fact that no effort is being made to even collect and identify a single firefly observed by over 2,000 individuals participating in the MOS FFW as noted in a recent forum post makes anyone who is serious about the study of fireflies and their disappearance question the validity of the method being used. If the method is not sound, the conclusions reached may not be sound and everyone's efforts wasted.
The easiest way to correct this problem is to offer to identify specimens individuals collect. I have made that offer and will use any specimens received or photographs of fireflies to build a FREE site that may help others better identify the fireflies they are observing. This is an independent service I am offering. Anyone who wants to avail themselves of this service is invited to do so.
Probably a low percentage of the 2,000+ people making reports of firefly sightings will bother to collect and submit specimens; hence, an offer for specimens is insignificant when it comes to impacting a healthy firefly population. Compare this to the millions of fireflies being exterminated by municipalities that are over spraying for mosquitos and I think an argument being made against collecting and identifying a few specimens shows a clear lack of awareness and understanding of the situation. Also, certainly making photographs and/or video of firefly specimens collected which shows unusual behavior probably due to exposure to toxins, would be vital in helping to prove what is causing the disappearance of fireflies, especially in areas where foggers are spraying for mosquitos at the exact time fireflies are active.
I would like to ask everyone to watch The Last Firefly video and see what is happening to fireflies. Then decide for yourself if you want to collect and identify the fireflies you are seeing. I also recommend you collect fireflies and make your own videos of any unusual behavior, to see if the fireflies in your area have been exposed to toxic chemicals. This is one of the best ways to actually see what is happening to fireflies after a fogger goes through a neighborhood and decimates a healthy population of fireflies.
Unless people collect firefly specimens, make photographs or videos, have specimens identified, then the mass extermination of species will not be properly reported and false conclusions may be reached by inaccurate data. I challenge everyone who is serious about their firefly studies, who really is interested in knowing the truth, to collect fireflies and photograph and make videos of the fireflies you collect. I would very much like to see if the fireflies in your city, town or backyard are exhibiting unusual behavior and are dying as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals in the air as they make their maiden flights. And I would very much like to obtain specimens for fireflies from across the nation to identify. Who knows, perhaps "fireflytopsy" or CSI-EF (Crime Scene Investigation of Expiring Fireflies) will aid in determining the cause of death of fireflies and the true reason fireflies are disappearing? But even if that is not possible, seeing more videos like "The Last Firefly" may stimulate people to not only take an interest in watching fireflies, but in taking action to stop their mass extermination!
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