India, May 17 -- Humans can virtually hunt a species to death, as also by an indulgence in its contrary instinct. This Janus-faced, unbridled destruction is independent of the usual culprits of pollution, habitat attrition, pesticides, etc. There were 40,000 tigers estimated in India at the turn of the 20th century but excessive shikar contributed to bringing numbers down drastically. The passenger pigeon, endemic to North America, was estimated at 3-5 billion in numbers when America was discovered. But European settlers had shot it out of the skies, i.e. extinction, by the turn of the 19th century. Or, the partridge holocausts of Punjab and Bharatpur duck shoots when hundreds were flushed and shotgunned in a day's shikar. Conversely, there can be few stories more steeped in irony and unthoughtful love than the fireflies of Moriyama (Japan). Moriyama town was once famed for its particularly luminous Genji fireflies (Luciola cruciata). Set amid Lake Biwa and the Suzuka mountains, Moriyama nights were spangled by thousands and thousands of brilliant spots of golden light. The Japanese are known for their love for the natural world, in particular for fireflies - those blossoms of a summer night. But that unrequited love was not attended by a concomitant circumspection. They simply collected Moriyama fireflies (each commercial collector could trap 3,000 of these glow beetles in a night) during the Meiji period (1868-1912). "Moriyama's fireflies were conscripted to decorate hotels, restaurants and private gardens so that city dwellers could marvel at their radiant beauty. Each summer, the town also collected and offered their famous insects as gifts to honor Emperor Meiji," wrote US Prof Sara Lewis, author of the acclaimed book, 'Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies'. Nature's abundance has no counter to human greed. By 1920, a proverbial room brimming with candles as Lewis put it, was ebbing into darkness one by one. Only a few hundred fireflies are left in Moriyama. Moriyama holds a lesson across time, culture and space. In China, fireflies are being caught in great numbers to cater to the popular Qixi culture. In India, illegal netting of rare butterflies for private collections abroad poses a similar threat....