Glowworms Bred in Captivity to be Released in Southern England
upstart writes:
They once lit up summer nights, people read by their luminescence and they've been celebrated by everyone from William Shakespeare to Crowfoot, a 19th-century North American chief.
But glowworms have had their lights dimmed by a cult of tidiness in the countryside, the loss of wild meadows and light pollution.
Now, hundreds of glowworms (Lampyris noctiluca) are being bred in captivity for release in two locations this summer, in an attempt to revive the declining species.
[...] The larvae - a gardener's friend, being voracious predators of snails - take two years to mature, which leaves them susceptible to being destroyed by increasingly intense meadow management, with regular cuts for silage and hay.
[...] "If we get really good at captive breeding and release, schoolchildren can turn these things out into the countryside. Why couldn't this be something you do as a child that has real meaning? They will look at these tiny things they've allowed to twinkle again and say 'we did that'. People need to have these formative experiences if they are to care for the things with whom we share the planet."
When I was in primary school, we would get a tree sapling to plant every Arbor Day, which was intended to raise our awareness more so than to restore the forests. A challenge for these citizen-led restoration projects is being able to do it at a large enough scale to have an impact, which requires a lot of high level organization (and $$).
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