Meet Maggie Rathje, Taxidermist

Pulaski woman stands out in male-dominated job

By Stefan Yablonski

Maggie Rathje is 70 years old and still goes to work every day. She is an award-winning taxidermist who runs Fish Wish in Pulaski.

She has been in business over 40 years and is one of the few women doing taxidermy.

“I was born in Hicksville to a family of five children,” she said. “My father was a minister and my mother was a textile designer with the exclusive contract from Walt Disney to do all the Disney characters when they were on sheets, towels, blankets etc. She was an incredible artist.”

Rathje went to SUNY Cortland and received a degree in biology and geology.

“I was certified to teach secondary science,” she said. “I taught for a year and it did not suit me.”

She then worked for the New York DEC as a fish and wildlife technician for six years, a job that brought her to Pulaski.

She married Carl Rathje, who worked for the DEC at the fish hatchery.

“He encouraged me to become a fish taxidermist as they were just building the Salmon River Hatchery and he knew the fishery would take off,” she explained.

She worked part-time for a taxidermist while working as a technician.

“With a little background, I watched videos and took a couple of seminars and basically taught myself taxidermy. It was a natural parallel to my wildlife artwork — I painted wildlife with watercolors on canvas, wood and slate,” she said.

For a while, she was the only one mounting fish in the area.

“Being a woman in taxidermy was a hardship at first, as it was purely a man’s profession,” she explained. “But as my work got out there it became an asset as I was the only woman. My mother’s artistic talent handed down to me gave me the edge on painting the fish which is very important.”

Because her customers requested it, she eventually branched out to birds and deer and small mammals.

“My teaching background helped me get affiliated with nature centers and so I was able to be special permitted to work with protected wildlife,” she said. “I was able to mount protected wildlife for schools and nature centers and museums which really broadened my work.”

She has been working Fish Wish Taxidermy for more than 40 years. When not working in her studio, she said she likes to golf, ski (both downhill and cross-country), fish on the lake, rivers and the ice.

“I hunt deer, ducks and pheasant,” she said. “I have chocolate Labrador retrievers which I have raised eight generations from pups. I have trained them all to master hunters. I am also a judge for both NAHRA [North American Hunting Retriever Association, a national organization that sponsors trials similar to AKC] and AKC for retriever hunt tests. I will be judging the AKC Master National this year.”

 

Diverse clients

“I have had all walks of life in my shop — from waitresses paying for their grandchild’s fish with tip money each week to millionaires representing Safari Club International,” she said. “I have customers from Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Russia, Spain, Poland — all parts of Europe.”

She has done life-sized Musk ox from Alaska, Orapollo Sheep and a chamois from New Zealand, African antelopes, hartebeest and wildebeest, an 11-foot anaconda, a nine-foot alligator. Also, a hummingbird and a bat for the nature center along with hawks and owls for the center and for Fort Drum environmental center, cormorant for the US Fish and Wildlife as well as a 10-foot marlin, 11-foot sailfish, state record steelhead and a world record coho.

“I have people in my shop from all over the world. I have met and befriended a lot of interesting people through my work and being a hunt test judge has taken me a lot of places to meet great people,” she said. “This keeps me busy and feeling young. Every day is different and provides new challenges!

“I used to get out to my shop 5 a.m. and work until late at night. Now, I am working more like a 10-hour day — but not every day, so I guess I am slowing down.”

For more information on Maggie Rathje’s business, visit www.fishwishco.com.