Glowworms are glowing again after 100 years in the dark

Glowworms are returning to a North Yorkshire reserve where they have not been seen for 100 years, bred by a volunteer in a garden shed. Peter Cooper collects and raises the bioluminescent insects in his spare time, releasing the larvae into Nosterfield Nature Reserve, a 600-acre stretch of old limestone quarries managed by the Lower Ure Conservation Trust. Glowworms were once abundant across Britain and have since gone dark across much of it, and they are notoriously hard to re-establish. Cooper and the volunteers who call themselves "glow-getters" have built a quiet expertise in rearing larvae in captivity. He has counted 1,900 larvae in his shed due for release this year. "They are incredibly rare in the region and I can't tell you how excited the volunteers have been about it," said reserve manager Simon Warwick. Whether it worked will not be clear until the wild-bred offspring light up the dark on their own, sometime in 2030.