For some wildlife, disturbances caused by military training activities are actually key to survival. The rare eastern regal fritillary butterfly is found only at Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, which is home to one of the largest expanses of native warm-season grasslands in the Northeastern U.S.
This habitat requires periodic disturbance, at the right time and intensity, to keep the butterfly going strong.
On a raw morning in early May, a dozen biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Fort Indiantown Gap piled out of pickup trucks under gunmetal-gray skies and walked gingerly onto an artillery range. Tiptoeing amidst spent ammunition shells and bunches of thigh-high straw-colored grass,….
