“I think that most people think of the fishes out there as kind of gray and brown, because when you bring them out of the water they lose their colors within minutes,” says Pietsch, who taught ichthyology for 40 years at the University of Washington and curated the Burke Museum’s fish collection, the largest in North America as it holds more than 11 million specimens.

As he moved forward teaching and curating, Pietsch felt limited by textbooks he used for his classes. In particular, he was upset by the dearth of research and accurate illustrations about local marine life available to him and his students.

James Orr (left) and Theodore Pietsch (right) at their offices at the University of Washington. (Photo by Caean Couto for Crosscut)

Then, in the 1990s, he met Orr, then one of his graduate students. Orr, who would go on to become a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also took interest in the local fish population. Together, the professor and his student began plotting a total overhaul of existing knowledge of fish in the Salish Sea: a marine region in Northwest Washington composed of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound.

They envisioned that their work would take the form of a large book that would provide insights into fish ecology, history and geographic distribution, as well as a strong visual reference.

To illustrate the book, they considered photographs, but the quality was mixed. Illustrations, they decided, would allow a more compelling single specimen to represent each species.

“We wanted our book to be beautiful as well as accurate and useful, so that really put us off for the longest time,” Pietsch says.

Three decades later, they’ve produced Fishes of the Salish Sea, a 1,032-page “doorstop” of a book that comes in three volumes. It’s both an encyclopedia, organizing species from least to most evolutionarily advanced, and a historical review of how species were identified, beginning in the 1880s. It includes artist Joseph R. Tomelleri’s hand-drawn illustrations, nearly 50 of which will be on display at Arundel Books through Aug. 1.

The book heavily advances ichthyology in the state. When Pietsch started at UW in the 1980s, the running tally of fish species confirmed in the region was about 218. By the time he and Orr finished, they had established 260 species, increasing the known number of species by 15%.

Amanda Whitmire, head librarian & bibliographer at Harold A. Miller Library within Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, was thrilled to hear of the book and order it for her collection.

"Fishes of the Salish Sea is one of those sets of books that I love to buy. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m really looking forward to seeing it in person. When I read the description of the book, it sounded like a wonderful combination of natural and local history, ecology and taxonomy — any one of those things combined with the gorgeous artwork would have been enough," Whitmire says via email. "As I’ve been working through Hopkins’ historical materials, the stories behind the people who were doing the work are what bring old data to life."

Orr says the university is planning to publish a digital edition, as well as an abbreviated field guide.

The book took decades in part because the researchers had to fact-check everything ever published about each species “and go into the collection itself and sit with microscopes and study the actual specimens because there's so much incorrect information out there,” Pietsch says. “If someone says, ‘Oh this thing has 14 dorsal fin rays,’ everybody just copies that for decades when really that first person made a mistake.”

This process resulted in a unique understanding of how dynamic our waters are. El Niño temperature shifts bring new tropical fish up from the South; some species are only ever recorded once.

“You don't say, here's what's here, here's what has been here, and here's what always will be here. Things disappear and things come into our waters,” Pietsch says.