WASHINGTON— In response to a petition and legal agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed protecting the Bethany Beach firefly as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

This is the first firefly species to be proposed for listing under the Act. The Service declined to designate critical habitat for the species but may do so in the future. These fireflies live in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

“Protecting Bethany Beach fireflies under the Endangered Species Act would be a tremendous step toward ensuring these little creatures don’t blink out,” said Jess Tyler, a Center staff scientist and co-author of the petition. “While the Fish and Wildlife Service was sitting on the listing petition, one of the firefly’s best remaining habitats was destroyed. There’s still time to save these fireflies by protecting all the other places they live and confronting threats like light pollution and wetland loss.”

This species is only known to live in a handful of coastal dune swales within 1,500 feet of the shore on the Delmarva coast. Coastal dune swales are a rare kind of freshwater wetland habitat.

Coastal development, climate change, residential and municipal pesticide use, and light pollution all threaten the Bethany Beach firefly. This species only flies and flashes at full darkness. Light pollution interferes with these core behaviors, and subsequently, mating success.

In 2019 the Center, along with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, petitioned for this species to be listed. At that time, seven sites were known. Since then the best swale in Delaware, at the Tower Shores development, has been fully developed and the firefly population there is believed to have been wiped out.

Since the 2019 petition, survey efforts have located additional populations. There are 35 occupied swales: 17 in Delaware, eight in Maryland and 10 in Virginia.

The species remains critically imperiled. The Bethany beach firefly is found only at parks and protected areas such as the Delaware Seashore State Park, Assateague Island National Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.