April 02, 2010

Going Behind the Scenes in the Fisheries Collection

Located on the South end of UW’s campus is a fish enthusiast’s dream: the Burke Museum’s Fisheries facility. With over 7 million specimens, the Burke Museum’s fish collections contain the largest number of juvenile and adult fish specimens on the West Coast.

In order to find out more about these diverse collections, I went on a guided tour of the Fisheries facility with curator of fishes Ted Pietsch and collections manager Katherine Maslenikov. Below is a behind-the-scenes video of the tour that includes just a few of the amazing stories I heard about specimens and research in the Burke’s Ichthyology department.



If you are interested in seeing more of the Burke behind the scenes, become a Burke Museum member before our members’ only Behind-the-Scenes Night on April 20th. On that night, members head into the collections storage areas of the museum to meet Burke experts and view collections that aren’t on display in the galleries. It’s a unique opportunity to get up close to some amazing objects and specimens!

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications