Professor of Conservation Science
Upon completion of his primary school education in 1962, the precocious but very young Augustine EZEALOR fledged from his adolescent nest in 1963, and began his quest for modern knowledge at Government Secondary School, Afikpo, in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria. The knowledge odyssey was interrupted by the 1967-1970 Nigerian civil war; but he resumed the journey to learnedness at the end of the strife in 1970. By 1972, Augustine had brilliantly garnered both the WASC and HSC; the two definitive and most sought-after high school certificates of that period. Due to the paucity of funds to continue his educational dream, Augustine spent the next few years teaching science subjects in a local high school while contemplating his prospects for higher education.
The breakthrough came via a 1975 Federal Government of Nigeria undergraduate scholarship award to study Wildlife Management in the USA. He gained admission into the unique BSc (Wildlife Management) programme, jointly run by Albion College, Michigan and the University of Michigan. He completed the 5-year programme in 3.5 years and graduated with Class Honors, winning the esteemed Professor Howard M. Wight Memorial Award of the university’s School of Natural Resources in 1979. While studying at the University of Michigan, he was inducted into the Xi Sigma Pi “… for having maintained high rank in scholarship and personal achievement in forestry resources management …”.
Drawn by home instincts and the eagerness to practice his new wildlife conservation career in Nigeria, he quickly returned home the same year and enlisted in the NYSC scheme. He was posted to Bauchi State and served at Nigeria’s premier wildlife park – the Yankari Game Reserve, during 1979/1980 NYSC service year. At Yankari, his scholastic aptitude was noticed by his expatriate boss who often engaged him in academic tasks such as the reorganising of the Game Reserve’s museum, which the “fledging wildlifer” turned into an attractive and educational resource for tourists to the Reserve, especially the student visitors. He also was central to the preparation and exhibition of artefacts from Yankari at the 1980 Kaduna International Trade Fair. The Yankari exhibition at that trade fair was such an attractive crowd-puller, that the German contingent gave Yankari an on-the-spot invitation to an expo in Stuttgart, Germany, that same year.
Augustine’s wildlife-related exploits at Yankari also caught the attention of two expatriate lecturers from ABU, Zaria, who were regular field study visitors to Yankari. They got him to serve as a Field Assistant to a doctoral student from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, who was studying the breeding ecology of Rosy Bee-eaters at Yankari. This initiated him into the real world field research in wildlife ecology. The expatriates also encouraged him to seek employment in Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria; and facilitated an offer of employment to him as a Graduate Assistant in that hallowed institution. At ABU, he obtained a MSc (Zoology) 1985. He was also later granted a study leave that enhanced his doctoral programme in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, USA, which culminated in a PhD in 1995.
Rising through the academic ladder, Augustine U. EZEALOR became a Professor in 2001. He is a fervent lecturer, a consummate and analytically-mined research scientist and a Consultant in living natural resources management. He has remarkable experiences in the fields of Ornithology, Conservation Biology, Ecological Impact Studies, Biodiversity/Wildlife Ecology, and Integrated Vertebrate Pest Damage Management. Commissioned by two UK-based NGOs with global outreach (the RSPB – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and BirdLife International), Ezealor coordinated Nigeria’s Important Bird Areas (IBA) Programme, a very unique global biodiversity conservation initiative that used birds as a common tool for identifying sites that are critical to the long-term sustenance of biodiversity at national, continental, and global levels.
Ezealor’s write-up on the IBA programme was Nigeria’s chapter in the Africa IBA directory (Important Bird Areas in Africa and Associated Islands: Priority Sites for Conservation). That 2001 exposition on African biodiversity was acclaimed by Her Majesty Queen Nor of Jordan (the Honorary President of BirdLife International at that time) as making “…an outstanding contribution to the sustainability of human use of natural resources throughout the (African) continent”. In 2002 a classic on Nigerian biodiversity (Critical Sites for Biodiversity Conservation in Nigeria) based on findings of the Nigeria IBA programme which was led by Ezealor, was also published. In his assessment of that publication, the Federal Minister of Environment at the time envisaged that parts of the book’s contents will be used: “… to shape our National Biodiversity Action Plan …”, and “… by all stakeholders in the Nigerian environment, to work toward the protection and wise use of our biodiversity”.
An educator and passionate advocate for renewable natural resources conservation, Professor EZEALOR has at various times headed the Department of Biological Sciences at ABU, Zaria and the Department of Forestry and Environmental Management at MOUA, Umudike. He has also been the Director of the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI), Jos, on an acting capacity. Many of his former undergraduate students numbering over 20 have trod in his footsteps to become Professors also; but the old soldier is still marching on! He is a ranking member of the Conservation and Environmental Services Committee of the NCF, a member of the Management Committee of APLORI, and a member of the advisory committee of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) – Small Grants Programme (SGP) in Nigeria.
He is married to a very lovely and doting lady, and has three wonderful offspring all of whom have attained adulthood. He also has two adorable grandchildren. Professor Ezealor was revered with the Fellowships of the Zoological Society of Nigeria (FZSN) and the Wildlife Society of Nigeria (FWISON) in 2018 and 2019 respectively. His favourite pastimes are nature photography, choral singing, and gardening.