In addition to consulting botanists at the Ownbey Herbarium, retired veterinarian Clive Gay and range scientist Ernie Motteram have dipped into the specimen drawers and expertise at the James Entomology Collection. They have been working with cattlemen in central Washington to pinpoint the insect vectors for pinkeye, the general name for a number of nasty eye infections. Ranchers in Kittitas County have told Motteram that pinkeye is their biggest herd health problem. He says the conventional wisdom that we already know all we need to know about pinkeye is dead wrong. Almost all of the scientific literature on pinkeye is old and doesn’t take into account recent advances in chemistry, biochemistry, and genetics. “You can revisit these things every 20 years, and make substantial headway,” he says. He and Gay trapped flies in the field, took them to Rich Zack for identification, and began isolating the infective organism from them—the first steps in making fresh headway against the disease.