By CHRISTOPHER DUNAGAN, Scripps Howard News Service

BREMERTON, Wash. -- Entering uncertain waters, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency must now protect salmon as well as human life and property.

BREMERTON, Wash. -- About 400 adult chinook salmon received a free bus ride up the Skokomish River in Washington this year, as biologists perfected a plan to boost dwindling runs of wild chinook.

BREMERTON, Wash. -- West Coast shellfish biologists are engaged in a war against a species of bacteria that has been killing oyster larvae and threatening to cripple the $111 million-a-year shellfish industry.

BREMERTON, Wash. -- Tree-cutting thieves laid waste to numerous large, aging maple trees on public property in Kitsap County this week -- presumably to cash in on valuable "figured" maple used to make musical instruments.