Georges Brossard

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Georges Brossard, born in 1940 in La Prairie, Québec, Canada, is a famed entomologist and founder of the Montreal Insectarium (Insectarium de Montréal).

[edit] Biography

Empassioned by insects from a very early age, he held a career as a notary until the age of 38. He then started to travel, and on his travels studied the insects he came across with deep interest. In 1989, after having collected over 250 000 specimens, he solicited the then mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, to open an insectarium. He and Father Bourque, director of the Montreal Botanical Gardens began a partnership to govern and operate the Montreal Insectarium. Georges Brossard has also founded 4 other insectariums across the globe, some of which are located as far as Shanghai and South Africa. Since the opening of the Montreal Insectarium, his collection, which he continues to amass through his travels, has grown to over 500 000 specimens. He has also written and directed 20 episodes of Mémoires d'insectes (Insect Diaries), and was the creator and host of the televised series Insectia. He is the cofounder and copresident of Cinéma IMAX.

In 2004, he was the subject of the fiction film Le Papillon Bleu (The Blue Butterfly), directed by Léa Pool, based on an event in Georges' life which occurred in 1987. Working for the Children's Wish Foundation of Canada, Georges Brossard traveled to South America with a boy in the terminal phase of cancer. It was the boy's dream to catch a mythical Blue Morpho butterfly, which Georges goes to great lengths to find in the vast jungles, even putting his and the boy's lives in danger. They finally catch the butterfly, and upon returning to Québec, the cancer which had been slowly killing the child miraculously receded.