Department of Wildlife And Fisheries

Department of Agriculture Research was created in 1999; to take has support to the Institute on specifics questions.

Why?

Agriculture is practices in Africa by more than 65 per cent of the population. The Department of Agriculture Research was suppressed and open Split in two new departments: Department of Environment and Agronomic Questions Created in 2001 with the same objective Department off Wildlife & Fisheries Created in 2001; questions relative to fauna and Flora conservation are treating.

WHICH INTEREST TO CREATE SUCH DEPARTMENT?

WHICH SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES OR INTERROGATIONS JUSTIFY ITS EXISTENCE?

On a world level, the red List of UICN in 2007 indexed from now on 41.415 species of which 16.306 are threatened of extinction (against 16.118 in 2006). The number; of species extinct reached the figure of 785 and 65 others exist only in captivity or culture. A mammal on four, a bird on eight, a third of all the amphibians and 70% of all the plants evaluated in the red List of l’ UICN 2007 are in danger.

BENIN is coastal country of West Africa; with a surface of 112.622 km ² and a population of less than 8 million. For this small country, were noticed on the red list of IUCN (2007

– 06 species classified as Critically Endangered (CR),
– 08 species classified as Endangered (EN),
– 34 species classified as Vulnerable (VU),
– 10 species classified as Low Risk (LR/Cd)

It should be mentioned that the situation is much more critical, because the evaluations on a scale of the all country must relates to cases of study.

Very often, this statute of a species to pass from a category to another is quite thin, and much of species considered as undergoing a risk minor or as Data Deficient (DD) are strongly threatened because of non actualization of the data.

For this reason, the evaluation of the population of reptiles for example, in Benin suffers from serious statistics. The terrestrial tortoises deserve a special attention, within sight of the scale of the sales in our markets.
The population of varanidae must be today evaluated on the whole of the territory,
Snakes must deserve the same attention. For example the category of Python regius is not available in Benin on IUCN red list.

For that, it will be necessary to add the protection of many fragile ecosystems which are threatened of disappearance by a wild urbanization which does not say any more its name.

The department wildlife & fisheries, merit thus finds a particular importance.

Since 2001 our areas of investigation
Birds:
Study of southern Benin avian fauna;
Cartography of the birds in the south Benin
Data sheet on the birds met in south Benin
Photo gallery of the birds of south Benin
Non exhaustive data sheet of the birds of north Benig

Reptiles

Varanidae
Crocodiles
Turtles (the study off Kinixys homeana is planned since 2007)

Mammals

Pangolins
Primates (the last one in the marshy forest of Lokoli, with Fauna & Flora International / 2007-2008)