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.”