Our Department manages a farm breeding of Common Eland (Taurotragus oryx) at Školní zemědělský podnik (ŠZP; University Agrocultural Company) in Lány. Under the name Derbianus Conservation the members of the Department participate in the breeding management of the critically endangered Derby Eland (Taurotragus derbianus derbianus) in Senegal.
In the 1920s a conservation program for the Derby Eland has being formed along with a project of a farm breeding of Common Eland. The idea was to support these two seemingly contradictory activities mutually. The meat from the farm breeding produced in the area where the endangered species live could help reduce unemployment and improve the nutrition of local people. This then would lead to the reduction of the illegal hunting rate of the critically endangered Derby Eland. Even though the farm breeding of the Common Eland was not realized in Senegal in the end, both projects keep cooperating closely, especially in the research area. Then director of the Institute of Tropics and Subtropics, doc. Karel Otto (in the picture), stood at the formation of both projects. He died in Senegal in 2000 during the realization of the Derby Eland conservation program.
doc. Karel Otto
