"Puget Sound"

NOAA Fisheries says the whale appears to have swum thousands of miles south from Arctic waters.

Multiple airport tenants in Seattle and Portland issued layoff notices in the past week. But in a possible sign of optimism over the long term, the Pacific Northwest’s major airport operators, the ports of Seattle and Portland, are continuing with big budget construction projects.

While the orcas of Puget Sound are sliding toward extinction, orcas farther north have been expanding their numbers. Their burgeoning hunger for big fish may be causing the killer whales’ main prey, chinook salmon, to shrink up and down the West Coast.

Every year, wildlife officials keep track of how many salmon return to their spawning grounds. This year, they expect low returns of salmon in Washington state — and that could change the fishing outlook.

The Canadian owner of an Atlantic salmon farm that collapsed last summer near Anacortes vows to use the North American Free Trade Agreement to save its fish farms in Puget Sound.

The head of Cooke Aquaculture says he’s furious about “scare tactics” that he says are driving a push to end Atlantic salmon farming in Puget Sound.

Over the weekend, Washington state tightened the screws again on an Atlantic salmon farming operation. On Saturday, the state Department of Natural Resources terminated the lease for Cooke Aquaculture’s Cypress Island fish farm near Anacortes.

Washington state officials have proposed a new tack to save the Pacific Northwest’s critically endangered orca population. Their idea is to boost salmon hatchery production by 10 million to 20 million more fish per year to provide more food for the iconic killer whales.

Radiation experts don’t believe there is cause for alarm on our shores, but some coastal residents are stepping forward to pay for seawater testing just to be sure.

Environment and health officials in the U.S. say they are puzzled by China’s decision to ban shellfish harvested from Northern California to Alaska.