This story first appeared in PA Local, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA taking a fresh, positive look at the incredible people, beautiful places, and delicious food of Pennsylvania. Sign up for free here .
This story first appeared in PA Local, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA taking a fresh, positive look at the incredible people, beautiful places, and delicious food of Pennsylvania. Sign up for free here .
The eastern regal fritillary butterfly once floated across meadows from North Carolina to Maine. Now the range of the vividly patterned insect is reduced to a single foothold inside the busiest National Guard training center in the country: Pennsylvania’s Fort Indiantown Gap.
The military base spans 17,000 acres in Lebanon and Dauphin Counties. It can host well over 100,000 personnel in a given year for small arms, air-to-ground bomb training, and more. And in the midst of all the rumbling and explosions ( it gets loud ), the last of the eastern fritillaries have made their home — not in spite of the bombings but because of them.