The Most Cruel Gift for Qixi Festival People Don't Know About

Yesterday was Qixi Festival, and this one boy bought a pot of fireflies as a gift for a girl. When she opened the pot, the glimmering of the glare made the beautiful girl smile. 

Later on, the girl set those fireflies free and let them explore the city… Except that fireflies can’t survive the urban life - they will eventually die! It was such a beautiful scene, but it turned out to be a cruel romance.

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Hi, my name is Ying. I’m a newborn firefly and full of expectations about this world. Even though I only have one year to live, I want to make the best of it and do a lot of great things!

During my growing process, I suffered through storms, home felling, pesticide poisons, life-threatening moments from other animals and insects. Mother said that the last period - the final half month of a firefly's life - is our reproduction period, which is regarded as fireflies’ most important moment.

However, a net changed our fate...

I overheard the villagers who caught me saying that a city boy is ready to use me to propose to his favorite girl. That's so exciting! I love romance, and seeing them together makes me happy.

We were staggering, lacking grain and water, waiting in a closed bottle along the wa while most of my friends had already died... But I was struggling as I knew that we had almost arrived at the city boy's home.

Qixi eventually came. Despite feeling exhausted, I couldn’t help but feel excited for the boy as I watched him nervously express his love for the young beautiful girl.

Eventually, the girl said yes to the boy. But I, gradually, lost the strength to stretch my wings because of the lack of suitable food, water, and air. I knew that I would soon leave this world I had come to love so much.

Something you don't know about the fireflies:

Fireflies are beneficial insects. They eat snails and other crops' harmful species but their reproductive capacity is very low.

As an indicator of ecological environment - the places where can find fireflies, is suitable for human beings' habitation. 

Because there are two special substances inside the firefly, luciferin and luciferase, fireflies can glow at night and look very dreamy.

Proposing to your loved one, confession, business activities, fairs... The special structure of a firefly is the main reason why they’re captured.

Many people have profited from the sale of fireflies, and buyers unconsciously become 'killers'. In recent years, the sale of fireflies has formed its own industry chain where sellers earned a profit of RMB 0.6-1 million per year.

According to statistics, in 2016, at least 6 million fireflies were sold at a price of RMB 2-3 per piece, while the cost of artificial breeding of a firefly is about RMB 20, so we can basically conclude that 100% of those sold are wild fireflies.

Hainan, Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Guangxi have become the main production areas, which have fallen into a commercial catching area. But bear in mind that these fireflies can’t survive with the water pollution, light pollution and chemical pollution present in these areas which may differ from their original homes.

Even though a lot of people from public welfare organizations boycotted such kind of commercial activities, unfortunately, many commercial exhibitions are still going on because fireflies are not protected by the law.

Li Xueyan, Ph.D., an associate researcher at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "Fireflies glow mainly for mating and courting, usually for 7-15 days, and then die. After being trafficked, it actually missed the most crucial time to reproduce its offspring, and there is no next generation..."

Do you remember any of the following animals that have gone extinct because of us?

Name: Dudu Mauritius - the national bird.

Time of extinction: 17th century.

Reason for extinction: Captured by humans, and deforestation

Name: Brigade pigeon - it was one of the largest scales of birds in the world.
Time of extinction: 20th century.

Reason for extinction: Captured by humans.

Name: Barbary lion - it was the second subspecies of lions in the world, also the nominate subspecies of lions.
Time of extinction: 19th century.

Reason for extinction: Captured by humans.

Name: White arm ape - one of the most colorful primate animals.
Time of extinction: 19th century.

Reason for extinction: Captured by humans, and deforestation.

Name: The giant lemur - Madagascar lemur
Time of extinction: 19th century

Reason for extinction: Captured by humans, and deforestation.

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Sadly, these magnificent beings can now only appear on our screens as they no longer live in the wild.

chenxi- lucky: I remembered I sitting on grandpa's lap one summer and hearing him chat with our neighbor saying “I can catch fireflies if I’m bored, they are glowing like the stars, it felt like a miracle. I would put them into a cage as a lantern but I would never hurt them. I would let them go after a while and then chased them, but don't know when I couldn't find them anymore.

pretty_intellgent-sist: I could see them when I was a child, but not anymore.

xiaownzixiaojinzi: I saw a small number of them when I was a child, but not now. I didn’t know such kinds of animal fairs existed, I felt bad for these insects. When the animal fair was over, they had almost died.

maodoubikuailai: It’s been so many years since I’ve last seen fireflies in this city. I really hope it won’t have to just be a memory, and that I’ll soon seem more of them flying around again.

sushoudeyu:  It’s been so long since I last saw fireflies. Maybe our younger generations will now think that they are elves.

Sangjunian: My grandma said, every firefly is a soul. 

Refuse to buy fireflies, save them!

Don’t let them become the next extinct species.

Do not use death to fulfill your love.

Source: 人民日报

Supervisor: Crystal Huang

Editor: SC

Co-Editor: Ed Bellin

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