Farmers who keep their chickens outdoors may want to watch the weather. A study of chicken farms in the West found that high winds increased the prevalence of Campylobacter in outdoor flocks, a bacterial pathogen in poultry that is the largest single cause of foodborne illness in the U.S.

Researchers found that about 26% of individual chickens had the pathogen at the “open environment” farms in the study, which included organic and free-range chicken farms. High winds the week prior to sampling and the farms’ location in more intensive agricultural settings were linked to a greater prevalence of Campylobacter.

“Farmers need to be aware of the risk,” said co-lead author Olivia Smith, a recent Washington State University Ph.D. graduate in the School of Biological Sciences. “These environmental factors are influencing if the poultry are going to have foodborne pathogens, so farmers need to be aware of what’s around them. If there’s a lot of wind and if they’re in really agricultural areas, that’s a problem.”

To help reduce Campylobacter exposure, the researchers suggested farmers consider installing windbreaks and watch weather patterns, so they can bring chickens inside during periods of high winds that could be blowing the bacteria onto their farms from nearby fields and livestock areas.

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Cheryl Schultz helped put the Fender’s blue butterfly on the road to recovery, from a low of about 1,000 butterflies in its Oregon habitat to 20,000 to 30,000 butterflies today. It’s a rare success story of an insect that has been downlisted from endangered to threatened, made possible, she said, by science, partnerships, and time.

Schultz, a professor of conservation biology in Washington State University’s School of Biological Sciences in Vancouver, is adopting the same approach to recover migrating monarch butterflies across the western United States. In recognition of her successes, she was chosen to present WSU’s Distinguished Faculty Address on March 29, during the university’s weeklong celebration of academic achievement, Showcase.

“We need to understand the biology in the context of lands that are used for a lot of purposes,” she said. “We also need to work with people, because we’re not just protecting a species, we’re trying to balance it with the needs of people. If we’re going to recover endangered species, we’re going to have to do it with the people who are there now.”

When Schultz began studying biodiversity, the Pacific Northwest was convulsed by what people now call the spotted owl wars. Efforts to protect that threatened species were characterized as pitting timber jobs against conservation.

“Environmental issues were painted as very black and white, good or evil,” said Schultz. “Figuring out how to do something about it is not black or white, but the gray area in between.”

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