Rear-Admiral Yves Joseph Marie de Kerguelen-Trémarec (13 February 1734 – 3 March 1797) was a French Navy officer.

In early 1772, he was assigned command of the third French expedition sent in search of the fabled Terra Australis with the fluyts Fortune and Gros Ventre.

The expedition discovered the isolated Kerguelen Islands north of Antarctica in the southern Indian Ocean and claimed the archipelago for France before returning to Mauritius.

[3] In his report to Louis XV, he greatly overestimated the value of the Kerguelen Islands; consequently, the King sent him on a second expedition with the 64-gun Roland and the 32-gun frigate Oiseau, but was again unsuccessful in finding Terra Australis.

Upon his return, Kerguelen was court-martialled in Brest on 15 May 1775 by a council of war presided over by Vice-Admiral Anne Antoine, Comte d'Aché for transporting 200 slaves on Roland from Madagascar to sell in French colonies in defiance of Louis XV, who had issued regulations ordering French Navy officers not to trade in slaves.