Taobao’s Firefly Sales Go Dark as Company Bows to Environmentalists

(Beijing) — Romantics envisioning setting free a jar of fireflies on a serene night this summer to display affection for a lover will now have to catch their own luminous insects, as leading e-commerce site Taobao has banned sales of the winged creatures.

Alibaba’s online retail site Taobao on Wednesday removed all links for purchasing live fireflies, in reaction to complaints from an environmentalist group devoted to the protection of the incandescent species.

Chinese conservation group Firefly Lifeline estimated that nearly 100 Taobao online shops sold a total of 350,000 live fireflies each month of 2016. The group says the critters rarely survive trips to buyers, which often involve travelling three bumpy days in under-ventilated jar. They are typically sold for about three yuan ($0.44) each.

Why China has a penchant for lightning bugs is unclear, but it likely derives from Japanese and later Taiwanese culture, which consider their flickering lights a symbol of melancholy and poetic love.

This influence has seeped into China through widely popular Japanese anime, the best known of which is Grave of the Fireflies, a heartbreaking tale of survival of a brother and sister during war — for whom fireflies provide solace and hope in times of despair.

Fireflies — scientific name Lampyridae — are a type of beetle that produce bioluminescence at dusk to attract mates and sources of food. Their numbers have dwindled in some places around the world due to overdevelopment and light pollution, which affects their ability to mate, according to advocacy site firefly.org.

Fireflies are being banned from the platform, Taobao said, in compliance with a list of forbidden items, which prohibits the sale of wild animals. There is no way to determine whether fireflies are artificially bred, the company explained to shop owners. Taobao also is outlawing sales of dynamite, police and army uniforms, VPN services, pornography, narcotics, fengshui and fortune-telling advice.

Taobao has long been the first place to look when tech-savvy shoppers want to find rare or exotic items, and hosts a diverse range of live animals and insects for sale. Besides pet shops that peddle puppies, turtles, and even porcupines, shoppers can also find peacocks, mealworms and other kinds of fish bait, honeybees, and even llamas for rent, which cost around 2,000 per day.

Contact reporter April Ma (fangjingma@caixin.com)