Mammals

A 2025 paper in the journal Ecological Applications found that male cougars prefer to hunt in habitats where they are more likely to encounter humans. The authors hope the findings can be used to better understand and potentially minimize human-cougar conflicts.

The year 2025 has been fairly mystifying to experts who make their living studying natural systems in the Puget Sound region.

Unusual observations this year include record-low dissolved oxygen levels, unexpected gray whale visitations, and the sudden arrival of an astounding number of short-tailed shearwaters — a seabird almost never seen in Puget Sound.

Cold waters rising from the deep along the West Coast helped to rescue Puget Sound from an oceanic heat wave bringing warm-water troubles to other parts of the Pacific Ocean. But our inland waterway has had its own problems, and the reasons have been a challenge

Cuvier’s beaked whales are the most commonly stranded beaked whale along the outer coasts of Oregon and Washington. Although typically a creature of deep water, beaked whales have been documented in the Salish Sea at least once in the last fifty years, although which species was swimming in Puget Sound was not clear.

Adult northern fur seals spend more than 300 days per year (about 80 percent of their time) at sea. During the summer and autumn they intermittently fast while on land and feed at sea. During the winter and spring they are pelagic, occupying the North Pacific Ocean as well as the Bering and Okhotsk Seas. Northern fur seals are considered rare in the Salish Sea, and there have been 93 confirmed sightings of stranded animals in the state of Washington since 1982.

Although rare in the Salish Sea, bottlenose dolphins are among the best-studied marine mammals in the world. Sightings of live and stranded animals have been increasing in local waters for the past two decades.

Bryde’s whales are rarely seen in the Salish Sea, preferring warmer waters, but at least three have been documented here since 2010.