Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology

Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology

Established	1959
Head of Department	Prof. Peter G. Ryan
Location	Cape Town, South Africa
Website	www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za

The Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology is a South African biological research and conservation institute based at the University of Cape Town. The mission statement of the Institute is “to promote and undertake scientific studies involving birds, and contribute to the practice affecting the maintenance of biological diversity and the sustained use of biological resources”.

History

The Percy FitzPatrick Institute was founded in 1959 through the efforts and financial support of Cecily Niven, the daughter of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, and was originally incorporated as a non-profit company. It is now incorporated within the University of Cape Town as an autonomous subunit within the department of Zoology. It has become the largest centre for ornithological research in the Southern Hemisphere.

Research

As of the end of 2006, research programs and initiatives included:

• Systematics and biogeography
• Life history strategies
• Cooperative breeding and sociality in birds
• Ecology of migration
• Ecological and evolutionary physiology
• Rarity and conservation biology of southern African birds
• Island conservation
• Seabird research
• Raptor research
• Gamebird research
• Spatial parasitology and epidemiology
• Pattern process linkages in landscape ecology
• Environmental and resource economics, water resources and estuarine ecology, and conservation
• Climate change vulnerability and adaptation

References

• Percy FitzPatrick Institute Annual Report, January-December 2006 downloaded 2 November 2007

External links

• Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology