David Yates ’99

“You use the data to write the story, to tell what happened. You owe it to the birds to give it your best shot.”

Looking back on his time in Louisiana, Yates traced a direct line from his Unity College experience to his career:

“It gave a good foundation for the work I do now,” he said. He recalled honing his telemetry skills in the campus woodlot, and benefitting from the hands-on field experience of professors.

“Listening to their stories made me think, ‘Wow, maybe I can do that someday.’” A Unity internship with BRI in 1999 set him on the path.

Though Yates has contributed to natural resource damage assessments following other notable oil spills, including the 2003 Buzzard’s Bay spill that affected 100 miles of New England coastline, the BP spill stands out in his mind.

“I came to know many of the local people over the years, and the effect of the spill in their own backyards was very emotional for them, and for me,” he said. “The future for the Gulf is so uncertain.” Still, he is hopeful that the effort to accurately assess the spill’s damage will eventually lead to meaningful habitat restoration. The goal, he says, “is to bring back something lost, if possible.”