Fireflies Light Up Brooklyn Greenway Cemetery Garden
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- Avvah Rossi, director of horticulture at the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, said the firefly presence was first noticed about three years ago and has continued each summer since
- The Greenway Botanical Garden at the Naval Cemetery is a nearly two-acre green space that still holds about 500 military personnel from the 19th century and features native plantings including tall grasses, wildflower meadows, and a wooden plankway
- Rossi attributed the firefly appearances to the initiative's practice of letting native vegetation decompose organically, which builds the rich soil fireflies depend on during their two-year underground larval stage
- Adult fireflies emerge for only a few weeks in summer to mate, drinking little beyond water or plant nectar, according to Rossi
- The Xerces Society, an insect conservation nonprofit, said no official data exists on whether fireflies are increasing in cities, with conservation biologist Richard Joyce coordinating volunteer-based tracking nationwide
Why it matters: The firefly sighting at a cemetery garden squeezed between the BQE and the Navy Yard shows that native-plant restoration on tiny urban parcels can revive habitat for species whose two-year larval stage depends entirely on undisturbed soil. With no formal census on city fireflies, the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative's success is essentially unmeasured — a gap the Xerces Society relies on volunteers to fill.
