Environment

The San Juan Islands are known for pristine natural beauty that includes a national wildlife refuge and several remote state parks.  

But they also contain about 1,000 acres of federally owned land that has been largely forgotten by authorities. Some islanders fear it might be sold off to developers.

Government officials in Ottawa are getting heat for apparently muzzling a scientist whose study discovered that a viral infection – which has been referred to as "salmon leukemia" – may be the cause of salmon stocks crashing off Canada’s west coast.

The Vancouver Sun reported that the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister’s Office, stopped the study’s lead scientist “from talking about one of the most significant discoveries to come out of a federal fisheries lab in years.”

The Canadian government told the Postmedia News, which wrote the story, that scientist Kristi Miller has not been permitted to talk about her work because she is expected to testify later this summer before a commission looking into the decline of the Frazer River sockeye salmon.

BREMERTON, Wash. – A gray whale that washed up on a Bremerton beach was alive when the stranding was reported this morning but it was dead when a National Marine Fisheries employee arrived on the site on Dyes Inlet.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Hanford Nuclear Reservation workers have retrieved a key portion of radioactive waste ahead of schedule. That announcement came from the federal government today.

A new study of genetically-modified Atlantic salmon shows they can breed with their wild counterparts. Critics worry escaped farmed fish could weaken wild stocks.

Federal officials revoked the permission today they had given to Oregon and Washington to trap and kill sea lions on the Columbia River. But Rob Manning reports it may be just a temporary move.

The Humane Society of the United States is battling the two states and the federal government in court over the propriety of killing sea lions to save salmon. Government officials say there are doubts about whether the latest federal authorization was given properly – because the states hadn't requested new authority.

The giant Palouse earthworm has had a celebrity status among Northwest species,  but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied the worm endangered status today.

Biologists say the endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit is breeding for the first time in a decade in its native habitat.

Wildlife managers are re-introducing the tiny rabbit on a wildlife reserve near Ephrata in Central Washington. They've confirmed several litters in a six-acre enclosure there.