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Firefly Season Is Here. Well, Depending On Where You Look.

On some late spring and summer evenings — when the weather is warm, skies clear and air damp — entomologist Eric Day watches the naturally-occurring light show that graces his rural farm.

Hundreds of fireflies come for the hay field, dancing near the stream, calling out to each other with synchronized flickers. There, it appears to the Craig County resident that the population of bioluminescent beetles is "doing quite well."

"You've just got to get away from development," said Day, who manages the Virginia Tech Insect Identification Lab. "Get away from competing lights. Get outside. Leave your phone inside. Spend some time outside and you'll definitely see some fireflies."

Despite Day's observations, as well as other Virginia homeowners who possess swaths of grassy acreage and see fireflies at this time of year, some assessments indicate that the beloved bug could be on its way to blinking out for good.

Standardized records of fireflies are rare, making the creature's masses difficult to track, explained Ariel Firebaugh, the director of scientific engagement at Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce. She added that over half of the 132 species studied are classified as "data deficient," which means "there just isn't enough data about their populations to determine how at risk these species are of extinction."

The most comprehensive inventory of extinction risks for insects, animals, fungi and plants — called the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species — puts 14% of 132 firefly species as "threatened with extinction" and 2% as "near threatened," Firebaugh relayed in a recent email. Thirty-two percent are of "least concern."

"Despite fireflies being so popular in the public imagination, the firefly research community is small," wrote Firebaugh, who focused her doctoral dissertation studies on the creature's behavior patterns.

Some recent findings have illustrated a nationwide decline in the insect, as reported by National Geographic and The Washington Post in 2023. They relayed that waning populations are often attributed to increased housing and commercial development, light pollution, rising temperatures and pesticide use.

"If male and female fireflies can't find one another, they won't mate, which could meaner fewer baby fireflies and population decline," said Firebaugh regarding light pollution.

So, in developed areas, you may not see quite as many lightning bugs as rural residents, both Firebaugh and Day relayed.

The Winchester metropolitan area currently has the state's fastest-growing population, according to demographers at the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center.

That means farming operations and farmland are on the decline in the region.

The latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture, released in February, shows that farmland in Frederick County decreased by more than 15,000 acres between 2017 and 2022. Farmland in neighboring Clarke County dropped by 16,000 acres during the same time period.

Day listed "subdivisions, manicured lawns, retail areas, shopping malls, highways" as "not conducive for fireflies."

"If that's the only place you'd look, you'd say there's no fireflies left," Day said. "What you've got to do is you've got to go out in the country where it's darker, less development. So if you're a firefly tourist, maybe a drive in the country would be the thing to do."

But, Firebaugh noted that even urban area residents have "a pretty good chance of seeing at least one firefly species this summer," called the "big dipper" firefly. They can appear in yards and parks around sunset.

This time of year — May and June — is ideal for sightings, Day said. The sparkling visitors thrive in warm, humid twilight. Yet, he noted they sometimes stick around as long as early October.

Firebaugh provided three simple ways to encourage the manifestation of fireflies in your backyard: plant native plants, be careful with pesticide use and limit artificial lights at night.

Blandy Experimental Farm, the 712-acre University of Virginia research destination in Clarke County, has not one, but two, upcoming programs — "because you can never have too many fireflies," Firebaugh said — for those seeking to watch and learn more about the glowing groups.

A Firefly Festival is set for June 18 at 8 p.M. It will feature family-friendly crafts, games and an educational talk. A family-friendly Firefly Walk — which focuses on learning about the insect while walking about a mile to observe — will be June 20 and June 22 at 8 p.M.

More information is available at blandy.Virginia.Edu.

To learn more about fireflies, Firebaugh recommended looking at the free resources of The Xerces Society for Insect Conservation at xerces.Org.

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Chicora Resident Urges Pennsylvanians To Save Fireflies This June

Fireflies gather in Butler Township during the peak of firefly season. The Pennsylvania Firefly Festival is urging Pennsylvania residents to turn off unnecessary lights to reduce light pollution and make it easier for fireflies to find each other to mate. Melissa Zaludek/Submitted Photo

For most of his life, Jeffrey Calta has been in love with nature. But when he moved to Fairview Township, he discovered a new part of nature to love: fireflies.

"One night, my wife said, 'Come on outside, you've got to see this,'" Calta said. "When I did, my yard and the surrounding area was just fireflies flashing on and off. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. So we just watched it for a good hour or two."

From that moment on, Calta was hooked on fireflies. By 2016, Calta had joined the Pennsylvania Firefly Festival, a nonprofit conservation group which holds an annual festival each June in Kellettville, Forest County.

Today, Calta serves as the president of the organization. His mission today is to promote firefly conservation, especially for the month of June, when fireflies typically begin mating.

"June is the most active month of the year for fireflies for mating," Calta said. "They're flashing and trying to track mates for the next generation."

Unfortunately, light pollution caused by humans is making it more difficult for fireflies to reproduce, as they rely on the darkness of night to find mates.

"Everyone has a light. No one likes the darkness anymore," Calta said. "And yet there are so many creatures, including fireflies, that need the dark. If you install a mercury vapor light on a telephone pole in a field where they had been mating and living before, they will disappear because they can't see each other."

As a result, Calta and the Firefly Festival are asking Pennsylvanians to voluntarily reduce their outside lighting for the month of June, in an effort called "Lights Out for Lightning Bugs."

"Our organization now is trying to spread the word," Calta said. "Turn off unnecessary lights when you don't need them."

The Pennsylvania Firefly Festival was founded in 2011 by Ken and Peggy Butler, a couple originally from Akron, Ohio, who moved to Forest County to start a bed-and-breakfast.

One day, the B&B received an unusual series of guests — a group of entomologists who came to the area to study the synchronous firefly, which at that point was thought to be nonexistent in Pennsylvania. The synchronous firefly is so named because the mating fireflies synchronize their flashing patterns to each other.

"They sent this team of three or four actual scientists, and they spent two weeks collecting fireflies, identifying them, doing DNA analysis," Calta said. "And they found that, yes, the synchronous firefly was real close to the property where Ken and Peggy Butler bought the house."

Peggy Butler, organizer of the Pennsylvania Firefly Festival, searches for fireflies in 2018 as night falls over her Black Caddis Ranch on the edge of the Allegheny Forest. For several weeks in June each year people from around the world make the trek to this northwest Pennsylvania forest to see all manner of fireflies. Associated Press File Photo

Gene J. Puskar

Not long after, the couple capitalized on the discovery by creating the Pennsylvania Firefly Festival. In its early years, the event ballooned in popularity since it was first held in 2011.

"The first year, I think they had 200 people show up, which was still more than they thought," Calta said. "The next year it went to 400, then it went to 800 and it peaked."

By the time Calta came on board in 2016, the Firefly Festival evolved from a single-day event into a conservation movement. Although the festival is still around, it has been scaled back in recent years to preserve the firefly habitat.

This year's festival is a weeklong affair, with the main events taking place June 28-29. Attendance is limited to only 50 patrons per night, and reservations are distributed through a lottery system. Children younger than 5 are not allowed to attend.

"We thought that was the fairest way to do it," Calta said.

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