Tagged: Wildlife

It's common for people strolling the beaches of Puget Sound to encounter a gray lump that turns out to be a seal pup. It's also common for well-meaning people to want to shoo them back into the water -- but this can do more to harass than help. A band of volunteers is making sure that doesn’t happen. Reporting for EarthFix, Katie Campbell explains.

Seven fish biologists working in Southern Oregon filed a scientific misconduct complaint Monday. They say the Bureau of Reclamation plans to disband their team because their studies were unpopular. Amelia Templeton of Earthfix Reports.

The Colville Confederated Tribes have authorized a wolf hunt on their reservation. Steve Jackson has more on the story.

Two endangered turtles are recovering at an Oregon aquarium. Storms washed them Monday onto Northwest beaches far from their warm ocean habitats. One is a loggerhead and the other a green sea turtle. Both turtles are in critical condition at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

Lance Beck is with the aquarium. He explains how warm-water turtles react to Oregon’s colder waters.

Beck: “They don’t technically hibernate, but they shut down their systems to survive, and that’s when they end up floating ashore at that point.”

The Northwest’s declining salmon runs have spurred marathon legal battles and inspired billions in spending to save the iconic species.

But Idaho’s coho salmon were never listed as endangered before they went extinct in 1987. Very few people noticed when the fish were gone. But the Nez Perce Indian tribe noticed. And thanks to its extraordinary efforts, coho are once again returning by the thousands to Idaho waters.

Earthfix reporter Aaron Kunz explains.