A grant has been awarded to the University of Washington under the direction of Dr. Sievert Rohwer for the partial support of an undertaking by the Burke Museum to prepare, catalog, and house a collection of 333 seabirds, salvaged as by-catch over the past decade from the long-line fishing industry in New Zealand. By-catch mortality has had a serious impact on populations of many tube-nosed birds, such as albatrosses and shearwaters. Due to their population declines, salvage is the only way research series of such birds are likely to be obtained. This grant will cover costs associated with preparing the new specimens, including labor for a skilled preparator, student assistants, and a collection manager. In addition to skin and skeleton preparations, all of the specimens will have an associated extended wing and frozen tissue specimen. Materials needed for archival storage of these new specimens include two new cases, skeleton boxes, and tubes for tissue samples.
There are several principle reasons why adding these specimens to the world's collections will make an important contribution to research and education. First, few museums have developed large collections of extended wings, so those associated with these specimens will constitute a major addition to world holdings, and likely will be the first wings preserved for many of these species. The Burke is unique in the world for its large research series of wings, which are absolutely essential to deducing the rules of flight feather replacement for large birds and are also heavily used by illustrators. Second, no museum in New Zealand maintains a tissue collection. Thus, this project will produce the first large set of tissues from Southern Hemisphere seabirds that will have been permanently archived by an institution with a commitment to making them available to researchers throughout the world. Finally, the 213 skeletons from this collection will increase world holdings by = 25-50% for six species and will add 10 new species to the Burke's collections. Additionally, for many species in this collection, the majority of the world's skeletons are outside the US, making skeletons stored at the Burke particularly valuable to US scientists because of their greater accessibility.
The broader impacts of collections grants are multifold because the community of users of collections is very broad. Increasingly, our collections serve a national and international community of scholars, as well as a vibrant program of undergraduate and advanced training at the University of Washington. Because specimens are our sole source of new data about past populations and extinct lineages, projects that improve their long-term care have huge potential benefits to society. Beyond original research, our collections serve a diverse community of users, including state and federal agencies, all manner of regional conservation and educational groups, a large community of wildlife artists and sculptors, and a growing program of K-12 educational outreach offered through the University and the Burke Museum.
