Pasolini wrote a famous essay in 1975, "The Disappearance of the Fireflies," which, at that time, was already starting to become very noticeable. Of course, the essay was really about capitalism.
Personally, outside my childhood in the countryside, I noticed fireflies in the outskirts of a largish city some 20 years ago, then nothing for a very long time, and then I saw a few when I lived for a brief period of time in a really remote place, like an hour from the nearest highway. No trains anywhere near, too.

Off-topic, but if you don't know Pasolini, I urge you to read his last interview which seems particularly gloomy as it appears to foreshadow his own death just a few hours after.
One memorable quote:

I listen to the politicians – all the politicians – with all their little presumptions and I turn into a mad man as they prove they do not know which country they are talking about, they are as far away as the moon. And together with them there are the men of letters, the sociologists and the experts in any kind of field.

I've been so happy to see them in our yard this year. Enough so that I've stopped clearing brush just in case that's why they're here in such numbers. I haven't seen them like this in a decade or more.

I had wondered why we always seemed to have some fireflies here and it turned out my hatred of raking and leaving the leaves under the bushes helped a lot!

Source? :(

Please I need to know!

Lanternfiles, on the other hand... Oh, wait, oh fuck.

I miss seeing these everywhere in the summer as a kid. Guess I just aged myself lol, but I did see some in the park last night. Nowhere near as many as years ago though.

The dad then joins his son laying on the floor and crying

Wikipedia says the species near me (southern Ontario) are of Least Concern for extinction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photuris_lucicrescens

I convinced my inlaws to stop bagging or raking their leaves a few years ago, and they're everywhere now. Not as many as if the whole neighborhood has done it, but more than when I met them.

!nativeplantgardening@mander.xyz

capitalism will kill us all, starting with the smallest and most defenseless

thats okay. we dont need things that dont make capitalists more money.

This is a wild concept to me. I see hundreds if not thousands every night in the summer.