The sea lions have posed a long-running conundrum for wildlife officials, pitting mammals protected under federal law against protected — and valuable — fish runs.

State park rangers and a contractor have buried a gray whale carcass that washed up on the beach at Sand Lake Recreation Area south of Tillamook.

Like its old-growth trees, the Northwest’s big, old chinook salmon are largely gone, a new study finds, with implications for Puget Sound’s critically endangered southern resident killer whales.