Pierre-Yves Daoust is Professor Emeritus of Anatomic Pathology and Wildlife Pathology at the Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC), University of Prince Edward Island, and former coordinator of the Atlantic regional node of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC; www.cwhc-rcsf.ca). It was his interest for wildlife and the environment that led him to choose veterinary science as a career. His professional activities have centered around diagnostic work as a tool to investigate causes of natural and human-related mortality in free-living wildlife. In this context, Pierre-Yves has dealt with a very wide variety of animal species, mainly, but not exclusively, birds and mammals. Through the many years that he has spent at the AVC, he has developed a particular interest in marine mammals and birds and in the marine ecosystem in general. As a pathologist, he has also been extensively involved in assessing hunting methods for seals and other mammals from an animal welfare perspective.
Thanks to a good working relationship with colleagues at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and, especially, with his friend and colleague, Zoe Lucas, Pierre-Yves has had a few occasions to work on Sable Island. These few occasions have been more than enough to convince him of the remarkable uniqueness of that Island with respect to its beauty, its tremendously dynamic geography, and its rich biodiversity. He has since continued his collaboration with Zoe through a project on plastic ingestion and causes of mortality in pelagic birds, primarily those of the family Procellariidae.
“I consider it a great privilege to contribute my knowledge and experience to the mission of the Sable Island Institute. In particular, I will continue to promote the Institute’s collaboration with the CWHC’s regional node at the AVC in order to better understand causes of mortality in wildlife.”