Six wildlife stories about creatures across Washington state
Stories by Tacoma News Tribune journalists, with AI summarization
This list of wildlife stories illustrates the connection between people and animals in Washington state, including mountain lion cubs and a newborn orca.
Mysterious blue blobs called by-the-wind-sailors wash up on beaches each spring, while beach explorers spot sea stars, crabs and clams during low tides in Puget Sound. Many stories mention the work of biologists, students and care teams who help protect the region's creatures.
These experts are offering free beach tours at low tide this week. | Published April 2, 2025 | Read Full Story by Becca Most
'He is zesty. You go, you spicy little dude!' | Published April 4, 2025 | Read Full Story by Brooke Baitinger
This whale population is critically endangered. | Published April 9, 2025 | Read Full Story by Helena Wegner
Watch it get away. | Published April 14, 2025 | Read Full Story by Helena Wegner
Mild winter weather creates ideal conditions for these jelly-like creatures that travel by wind and wash ashore in spring. | Published April 17, 2025 | Read Full Story by Genevieve Belmaker
It has a shell, claws and tubercles extending from its head. | Published May 15, 2025 | Read Full Story by Sara Schilling
The summary above was drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories listed were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Staunton's Frontier Culture Museum is expanding with the addition of an indoor space
A major expansion is underway at Staunton's Frontier Culture Museum. The largest open-air living history museum in the Shenandoah Valley will soon include a new indoor gallery space. The American Journey Gallery is expected to be open fall 2027. "We're an outdoor museum so when wintertime comes or we have inclement weather, visitors just drop off," said Butch Smiley, the museum's chief executive officer. In January the museum had 690 visitors. A month later 800 people came through the gates. In March, when the weather was starting to become warmer, 8,500 people visited the museum. "So it's a vast difference," Smiley said. "We've always had the goal as a museum to have an indoor facility so when the weather is bad, people will still be inclined to come." The 40,000-square-foot facility will include a permanent exhibit gallery, rotating exhibit areas, a research library, flexible education rooms and an indoor/outdoor pavilion. The facility will cost $70 million and state funding has been secured to support the project. The Frontier Culture Museum is a state agency under the guidance of the Virginia Department of Education. Cliff Edwards, the museum's deputy director, said the idea for the facility began in earnest in 2018 and is now coming to life before the eyes of the staff who see it every day. "We stopped counting at 400 hours of Zoom meetings on design through COVID," Edwards said. Excavation work is currently taking place at the site. The new gallery will be just to the left of the current visitors center and museum entrance. The work that passersby can see from Frontier Drive will be additional parking, an increase of 300 spots for both buses and cars. The Frontier Culture Museum attracted 66,000 visitors in 2024. Smiley is optimistic that once the new facility is open the museum can double that number. Just over a third of those visitors are students. Forty school divisions in Virginia — including Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County — and two in West Virginia have received funding through The Trailblazers Grant Program to attend the museum. Operated under the nonprofit arm of the museum, the grant program has awarded nearly $136,000 to date. The current outdoor space features costumed historical interpreters demonstrating the life and customs of the indigenous Native American tribes in Virginia, the arrival of the German, English and Irish settlers along the Great Wagon Road, and the painful journey of the enslaved Africans to the first permanent British colony in North America. The gallery will be very interactive, Smiley said, as the museum works to continue its mission of telling the story of the blending of European, African, and indigenous peoples into the United States. "What we're really cognizant of is making sure we've got source material to be able to tell the story about folks that came over," Smiley said. "We have engaged 16 scholars throughout the nation as well as in Europe to help us tell that story." Dorette Sobolewski, the museum's director of research, called the permanent exhibit the crown jewel of the indoor facility. Staff has been working on that for about 18 months. It will take up about 7,000 square feet of the facility. The exhibit will cover the story that the Virginia frontier played in the creation of the United States. Visitors will follow the timeline from the earliest days until present time. "We've recruited the scholars to make sure we get the content right," Sobolewski said. "It's a large story. It's a complicated story. The scholars don't always agree on some of this. We need to base our final edits, our final content on the most recent scholarship that is available." Sobolewski worries about getting the stories accurate. She met with the Virginia Indian advisor recently, saying the advisor is intimately knowledgeable on interpreting the story of the Indigenous people of what would become Virginia. "That's their story to tell," Sobolewski said. "It's not our story to tell. We have to make sure their perspective is represented respectfully and accurately." The permanent exhibit will change very little, perhaps occasionally as they learn more information. The rotating exhibits will change every 18 months to two years. "All the people that came before me, the ones who got this started, dreamed of having an indoor facility," Smiley said. "We're able to enjoy the benefits and see the finished product of what their goal was." More: Edgecomb reflects on two decades as Fort tennis coach as Indians advance to state tourney More: A large structure is being built near I-81 in Staunton. What exactly is it? — Patrick Hite is a reporter at The News Leader. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Connect with Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@ and on Instagram @hitepatrick. Subscribe to us at This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Staunton's Frontier Culture Museum undergoing major expansion
Travel Weekly
37 minutes ago
- Travel Weekly
Taking it slow at Kauai's Waimea Plantation Cottages
Wandering through the wide-open green spaces at Waimea Plantation Cottages, guests can take a step back to a slower, simpler pace of life in the Islands. The renovated cottages -- there are 59 of them -- share the resort's 43 oceanside acres with palm trees and tropical foliage. "Waimea Plantation Cottages is really Kauai's historic hotel, and these are authentic, vintage plantation homes; they were built from 1880s to 1930s," said Lois Shore, director of marketing for Waimea Plantation Cottages. Established in 1884 on the west side of Kauai, first as a dairy and then as a sugarcane plantation providing workers a place to stay, Waimea Plantation Cottages was reborn as a resort in 1984. Nature is a big draw at the resort, which is about to launch a self-guided tour of the many trees on the property, including banyan, macadamia, uliuli, plumeria, hala and monkeypod. "We have so many guests ask about the trees and the plants that we decided to give people a guide to what is growing on the grounds," Shore said. The cottages themselves range in size from one to five bedrooms and offer various views. I recommend the oceanfront or oceanview cottages, as it adds to the experience. A pool sits oceanfront at Waimea Plantation Cottages. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Waimea Plantation Cottages Each of the cottages comes with a fully equipped kitchen, living area and a private lanai. What I find most interesting about the cottages is that every one has a nameplate by the door that lists the name of the person who lived at the house and worked on the plantation. It really places the history of the place front and center. Typical activities most guests engage in at the resort are jogging, walking (which may include rock collecting/gathering) and exercising along the 2-mile-long black-sand beach. Also, in the evening, guests are treated to spectacular sunsets with the island of Niihau in the background. "It's an amazing place, and we are really preserving part of Kauai's and part of Hawaii's history," Shore said. The property will also host weddings. When a guest books a wedding, the property supplies a list of Kauai wedding planners who have prior experience working these special events. There are barbecues available for grilling food, or guests can go to the on-site restaurant, Chicken in a Barrel. In addition to serving up delicious cuisine, the restaurant supports a camp for kids who might not be able to go to camp otherwise; and its training program not only gives young people job skills but builds their confidence in the bargain. When I'm dining there, I like to order a chicken plate lunch and then find peace lounging at the oceanfront pool, where I'll spend the afternoon in the sun, gazing out at the horizon and relaxing in the water in the very tranquil setting. Kauai, the Garden Isle Previous Next Kaua'i, Hawai'i's fourth largest island, is nicknamed the "Garden Isle" due to tropical rainforests, waterfalls and green valleys covering much of the island. Mount Waialeale, pictured here, is one of the wettest places on earth. Photo Credit: Christine Hitt Kaua'i, Hawai'i's fourth largest island, is nicknamed the "Garden Isle" due to tropical rainforests, waterfalls and green valleys covering much of the island. Mount Waialeale, pictured here, is one of the wettest places on earth. Photo Credit: Christine Hitt Wailua Falls was featured in the TV show "Fantasy Island." Photo Credit: Christine Hitt Kauai's Hanaepepe town inspired the Disney movie "Lilo & Stitch." Photo Credit: Christine Hitt Visitors walk through a tree tunnel on the way to Kee Beach. Photo Credit: Christine Hitt A quiet day at Kee Beach on Kauai's north shore. Photo Credit: Christine Hitt The Kauai Museum in Lihue is filled with history about Kauai and Niihau. Photo Credit: Christine Hitt A poke bowl at The Musubi Truck in Kapaa. Photo Credit: Christine Hitt Previous Next
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Voyageurs National Park faces budget cuts amid 50th birthday revelry
If you've ever spent time planning a milestone birthday party, and then found out you don't have the resources to truly celebrate, you might understand what's happening at Minnesota's lone national park in 2025. Voyageurs National Park, the 218,000-acre expanse of water and wilderness on the Canadian border just east of International Falls, turns 50 this year. And the gala celebration planned by the park's myriad fans has been tempered just a bit by the announcement earlier this year of sweeping budget cuts all across the National Park Service. According to some reports, the budget reductions announced in February by Elon Musk and his controversial Department of Government Efficiency have left as many as 10 park staff positions vacant at Voyageurs. The park opened in 1975 amid fanfare and some controversy, as some long-time property owners in the area were pressured to sell their lake cabins to the NPS. But none of that potential bad news, or a spring cloudburst, could dampen the recent celebration of the park's 50th birthday held at a Minneapolis brewery by the Voyageurs Conservancy – which was founded a decade before the park opened, and works to connect more people to Voyageurs. Hundreds braved a sudden late May rain and turned out for the celebration, which featured information about Voyageurs, food, live music and a silent auction to raise money for the conservancy's efforts. 'Everyone loves a birthday, and we're birthdaying the hell out of the birthday. We're doing it all year long. It's not just one day, it's a full year of activities,' said Christina Hausman Rhode, the conservancy's executive director. 'We've had a couple of bumps in the road with federal changes. We've lost staff and there's some uncertainty there, but through it all this is an important moment to celebrate the park, to be thinking about the future and to be thinking about the vision for the national park in our state.' The park welcomes upwards of 200,000 visitors per year, with a notable uptick during the pandemic, when more people were seeking outdoor recreation. Those numbers put Voyageurs somewhere in the middle, attendance-wise, among the country's 63 national parks, far below the 12 million visitors the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina saw in 2024, and well ahead of Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska, which saw just over 11,000 visitors last year. Isle Royale National Park, which is in Michigan but located just off the tip of Minnesota's Arrowhead and is accessible only by boat or plane, recorded 28,800 visitors in 2024. Hausman Rhode said that in a state like Minnesota that celebrates the outdoors from the wilderness of the Boundary Waters to the hiking trails of the Driftless area in the southeastern corner of the state, a surprising number of people aren't aware that the state has a national park, and many have never been there. Collectively, the conservancy is working to change that. 'We are another part of that mosaic of wonderful public lands in our state,' she said. 'I think Voyageurs kind of completes that mosaic, as it's everything Minnesotans love. It's the big lakes, it's the boats, it's the loons, it's the wolves. And we put it in a national park, and it's our gift to the rest of the National Park Service.' In addition to opportunities to view wildlife up close and camp in secluded sites specially designed so you don't see neighboring campers, Voyageurs sells itself as a Dark Sky Park, popular for stargazers for the lack of light pollution and the opportunity to see a vast cosmic array and even northern lights on clear nights. While fishing, camping and boating have always been staples for Voyageurs visitors, Hausman Rhode said houseboating and sea kayaking are among the activities seeing a recent spike in popularity at the park. The DOGE cuts have touched off a backlash from coast to coast, with a group called More Perfect Union erecting billboards in Minnesota and Wisconsin noting that the Trump administration's funding reductions could mean reduced staff and increased danger for park visitors in 2025. 'We are down some staff positions and the next proposed federal budget is looking really grim for the National Park Service,' Hausman Rhode said. 'We don't know totally how that will filter down to the National Park Service, but we know cuts are being proposed.' The park has visitors centers at Rainy Lake, Kabetogema Lake and Ash River, all of which can be reached from the Twin Cities in under five hours of driving. The park does not require an entry fee, although there are separate charges for camping, houseboat permits, boat tours and on-site equipment rentals. More information about the Voyageurs Conservancy and their efforts can be found at No Wi-Fi, no problem: 8 family-friendly hike-in lodges for a digital detox Skywatch: June stargazing — the great late show Minnesota veterans with PTSD turn to the outdoors to improve mental health A 700-pound boulder pins Alaska man face-down in a glacier creek for three hours Skywatch: High heavenly hair
