Badiar National Park (French: Parc National du Badiar) is located in Guinea. It is on the border with Senegal and is next to Senegal's much larger Niokolo-Koba National Park. The park was created on May 30, 1985, by ordonnance N°124/PRG/85. This was partly because Senegal was worried about poaching in Niokolo-Koba National Park. Badiar is a Category II park according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Geography
The park has two main areas: the Mafou sector, which covers 554 square kilometers (214 square miles), and the Kouya sector, which covers 674 square kilometers (260 square miles). There is also a buffer zone of 5,916 square kilometers (2,284 square miles) surrounding the Mafou sector. The main rivers in the park are the Koulountou, which is one of the two major tributaries of the Gambia River, and the Mitji. The average yearly rainfall is between 1,000 and 1,500 millimeters (39 to 59 inches), mostly during the rainy season from June to October.
The park is an important ecosystem with many types of animals and plants. It is one of three main areas in the Badiar Biosphere Reserve, which was created in 2002 and covers 2,843 square kilometers (1,098 square miles). The reserve also includes the Southern Badiar forest and the Ndama forest. The land includes savanna, open woodlands, and gallery forest. The eastern part of the park has scrub woodland, while the western part has wooded savanna and open forest. Endangered plant species in the park include Ceiba pentandra, Cassia sieberiana, and Combretum micranthum.
Endangered animal species found in the park include the Western red colobus, western chimpanzee, white stork, African rock python, and ball python. Other animals that live there include the African elephant, roan antelope, kob, giant eland, leopard, spotted hyena, and Guinea baboon. The park is recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports large populations of violet turacos, red-throated bee-eaters, blue-bellied rollers, Senegal parrots, piapiacs, black-capped babblers, purple starlings, white-crowned robin-chats, bar-breasted firefinches, and Sahel bush sparrows.