Douglas Pollard has a Ph.D. in botany and is an avid fisherman, a respected historian and an environmentalist. At the age of 12 he cast a line into the River Mole and never looked back. A few years later he was lured by the fishing prospects offered by the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and collected a Ph.D. in botany. After two years working as a wildlife biologist at the Wildfowl Trust in Slimbridge (“actually being paid to be on the water”), he immigrated to Canada to develop a career in forest research (“and to do a bit more fishing”).

 

Initially specializing in the physiology of tree growth, he pressed his concerns over conservation and deteriorating environments. For several years he was senior policy advisor, environment, for Forestry Canada, and he represented forestry on the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas. He is a leading authority on the implications of climate change, and has published over 75 papers in scientific and professional journals. He celebrated his retirement in 1996 by catching a 262-pound halibut off Langara Island. Doug is a member and past president of the Haig-Brown Fly Fishing Association in Victoria, BC, where he lives with his wife Penny.