Overview and History

The history and realization of the Department of Zoological Sciences goes back to the foundation of the former Department of Biology under the University College of Addis Ababa in 1950. This was started by teaching the courses General Biology and General Zoology to students of Biology. The first batch of BSc graduates in Biology graduated in 1957. With the establishment of Haileselassie I University in 1961, the Faculty of Science (and Department of Biology) was incorporated under the University. During mid- and end of 1960, the Natural History Museum was founded. Starting from the early 1970s, many Ethiopians started to join the department as staff members. With the start of the graduate program (MSc) in Zoology or Botany stream in 1978, the number of zoological courses given was increased. The PhD program at the Department of Biology was launched in January 1987. Most of the research work of these students was based on Ethiopian problems and needs. Such a scheme also provided the Department with substantial research grants from abroad including the Freshwater Fisheries and Limnology Project (CIDA Canadian). The Natural History Museum became an integral component of zoological teaching and research arm of the department.

Curriculum revisions were done in the department over the years to include General Zoology, The Animal Kingdom, Genetics, Evolution, and Histology and Embryology. For BSc students, the Science Stream has been slightly modified to suit the present objectives and needs of the country such that students can partly fulfill their aspirations and the expectations of their employers by taking a total of 16 credit hour additional courses in any one of four Units, including Zoological Sciences, during the last year(s) of their training. The MSc program that was started in 1978 developed in 1995 to incorporate the following specializations in zoological streams: Ecological and Systematic Zoology; Fisheries and Aquatic Science; Insect Sciences. The Insect Sciences MSc program is to serve as an East African Regional Program to be conducted in collaboration with the International Center for Insect physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) through the African Regional Postgraduate program in Insect Sciences (ARPPIS). An additional stream on Dry land Biodiversity was launched in 1997. The Ph.D. training program initiated in 1987 is of a “sandwich” scheme with foreign universities, and included, among others, insect sciences and aquatic biology. To date, two in Aquatic Biology and one in Insect Sciences have graduated from the Ph.D. program. Many staff members have been trained in a more conventional way mostly in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.A. Some technical staff takes care of the laboratory activities, or assistants are employed on contractual basis. Hundreds of students have graduated (Certificate, Diploma, Degree, Masters, and PhD) over the past decades.

Most of the research conducted and published in the 1960s was done by foreign professionals. Since 1970, the participation of Ethiopian staff in the research activities of the Department has grown considerably. Over 80 scientific papers have been published in reputable journals in the first 25 years of the existence of the Department of Biology. Some of the zoological publications of this period, among others, include: E.K. Urban, Bibliography of the Avifauna of Ethiopia. 1970; E.K.Urban, and L.H.Brown, A checklist of the Birds of Ethiopia 1971; Fesseha Haile Meskel, Larger Games of Ethiopia (in Amharic) 1974; Shibru Tedla, Fresh water Fishes of Ethiopia, 1973, Monograph. Today, many researchers have modest funds to conduct research on animal ecology, insect science, fisheries biology and limnology. On the average, the staff of the Department of Biology publishes more than 30 scientific papers annually.

Earlier, inter-institutional research collaboration was established between animal ecologists and fisheries biologists with the Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission in the Joint Ethio-Russian Biological Expedition; fishery biologists and limnologists of the Department of Biology have been collaborating with the Fisheries Development Agency; the Non-Human Primates project with the Kyoto University, Japan and Washington and New York University in the U.S.A. The Department of Biology had housed the Wildlife Society of Ethiopia until the latter acquired its own office outside the campus. Recent collaborations with other organizations and institutions include research proposals and activities on: fruit fly management (with SIDA Sweden,ICIPE kenya, SLU Sweden, Max Plank Institute Germany); Global Taxonomic Initiative capacity building project (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels).

The Department of Zoological Sciences started running as a full-fledged Unit in October 2010, although the three streams within the Program Unit have been conducting their respective graduate programs for the last several years within the Biology Department. The Department has 15 academic staff members; twelve are PhD holders and three are following their PhD studies. Several MSc and PhD students are currently pursuing their graduate studies in the Department of Zoological Sciences.