History
In 1998 the first Czech-Senegalese cooperation was started. Firstly, the vision of antelope breeding for economic purposes was discussed, but soon the need for urgent conservation of Western giant eland was identified as a common goal. In 2000, the SPEFS together with DPNS (Senegalese body responsible for national strategy of nature conservation) carried the operation of anial captures in the Niokolo Koba national park, the place of Western giant eland origin. The captures succeeded and 9 Western giant elands were transported from the Niokolo Koba national park to the Bandia reserve. At the same time, the first activities of the Czech team from Czech University of Life Sciences Prague in the Niokolo Koba national park were started, mainly concentrated on animal census, research and the possibility of in-situ conservation of Western giant eland, namely due to support within the frame of Czech development cooperation. 
Thereby the SPEFS founded first breeding of Western giant eland in the world. As the situation in the Niokolo Koba NP remained unsure and without clear future improvement, DPNS proposed closer cooperation between the two institutions and suggested to focus mainly, for instant, on the ex-situ breeding of Western giant eland in the reserve and future management of this population. We successfully established cooperation, discussed and introduced the breeding strategy. For better achievement of project goals, we extended our activities from animals to humans. In 2008, we introduced new part of the project: children, local’s and guard’s educational programme.