• grue@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    When I was a kid, there used to be hundreds of fireflies in my backyard in the summer. Now, I get excited to see even two or three.

    I blame the anti-mosquito pesticide services half my neighbors seem to hire.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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      5 months ago

      Where I grew up, the city wanted to hire a bunch of trucks to drive around town spraying malathion into the air to kill the mosquitos. They had a vote, and the town voted overwhelmingly that, fuck no they did not want that, please don’t do that, that sounds awful. Then they did it anyway.

      Same thing; now there are pretty much 0 fireflies.

    • fishos@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Blame the raking of the leaves. No leaves in fall means no place for the eggs to be laid and no place for the larvae to grow. It’s another casualty to grass lawns. A “clean” nature is a place where nothing has room to thrive.

      • JustAnotherRando@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I try to help what little I can there by not raking (or if I do, I collect and move into our fenced in section so insects can still make use of them). It does also help my laziness that I have a legitimate reason to not rake.
        Not sure if it helps or not since I do mow the leaves with the grass at the start of the summer.