|
Queen Elizabeth National Park - |
|
|
|
Incredible Biodiversity
Situated in the west of Uganda, the Queen Elizabeth Park became a wildlife reserve out of a natural emigration from the area at the turn of the twentieth century. Rinderpest, a tick-borne disease, and the tsetse fly drove out humans and cattle, but the game remained. It was gazetted in 1952 when Queen Elizabeth II visited the area.
Queen Elizabeth National Park lies to the south of the Rwenzori mountain range that soars upward within a dozen miles of its northern boundary. The park is spread along the eastern shore of the Rift Valley's Lake Edward covering 2500 [1980 SQ KMS] square kilometers. Due to the incredible number of heavy-weight animals, elephants, hippos, and buffalo that lived there, it once had the distinction of carrying the largest wildlife biomass in the world.
The park's northern section is particularly scenic. When the weather permits, there are tremendous views of the Rwenzori peaks from its plains, which are decorated with giant candelabra euphoria trees. In the northeast section of the park is Chambura Gorge, where they are habituating chimpanzees for visitors. In addition, Chambura has lions, leopards, African finfoot and black bee eaters. In the Kikorondo area, plains give way to the sensuous cones of extinct volcanoes, some of which are filled with beautiful crater lakes. The most spectacular game viewing takes place by boat on the Kazinga Channel, which connects Lake Edward with its smaller brother, Lake George. The channel is packed with thousands of hippos and multitudes of fish-eating birds. The southern Ishasha sector of the park, lying in the shadow of the Virunga Mountains of Zaire [CONGO], has huge grasslands that stretch out with grazing topi, kob and buffalo. In the old fig trees you can sometimes see tree-climbing lions.
|
