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Lake Mburo game park; a tale of Uganda’s natural endowments
Tourists admire the Rothschild’s giraffes shortly after they were translocated from Murchison National Park in northern Uganda to Lake Mburo National Park in western Uganda. Photo by Dominic Bukenya
What you need to know:
Variety. Besides the beautiful eco-system, guests to the park are exposed to a long list of animals and birds.
It is hard for someone who has grown up around the enchanting Lake Mburo National Park to stay quiet about the glorious beauty that is just next door. Tourists who have visited the park continue to proudly tell stories of their experience. In fact, according to Jonathan Ahabyona, a tour consultant and regular visitor to Uganda’s parks, “it is stunning places such as Lake Mburo game park that have maintained this country’s glory as the pearl of Africa.”
Guests to the park are entertained by a long list of animals, including up to 300 hippopotami, Burch ell’s zebras (which can only be found in Mburo and Kidepo valley national park), the impalas (only found here in Uganda), the endangered Sitatunga antelope, primates such as the notorious but fascinatingly entertaining olive baboons, the ferocious buffalos, lions which are just returning to the park, Klipspringers, which majestically pause on top of rock outcrops, day time and nocturnal predators including the spooky hyenas and a good population of incredible hunters such as the leopards and crocodiles.
“And these are just a pinch of Mburo’s treasure chest because the park also has a an admirable list of bird species, which decorate its many ecosystems. Some birds can be seen in the acacia vegetation, while others delight in the park’s wetlands going about fishing.
Mburo’s Rubanga forest is one of the park’s busiest assemblages of bird species. Birds in their many colours and melodic choruses include the Tabora Cisticola, Yellow Warbler, African Finfoot, and the widely sought-after but rarely seen Shoebill Stork, according to Ahabyona.
Mburo’s guests are also assured of experiencing the true African wilderness because, according to Samuel Makanga, a tour operator at Prime Safaris and Tours, “it is only in Lake Mburo National Park that tourists will enjoy horseback safaris. These are conducted by the luxury eco-lodge called Mihingo and are surely a rewarding addition to viewing African game. Unlike the irritating sounds of vehicles which often scare away some shy animals, the quiet horses take tourists closer to the animals, enabling them to even see the smallest of unique details in every zebra’s black and white patterns, or how the horns were mounted onto the buffalo’s head.”
Enter the Rothschild’s Giraffes
Although some of the park’s resident species were poached into extinction in the years before, government’s action of gazetting Lake Mburo in 1983 as a national game park has remained nothing but the right call. Animals such as the lion that had been feared extinct from the park have been spotted patrolling the savanna plains again.
But Mburo’s future is even made brighter by the reintroduction of giraffes, which had gone extinct from the park more than 50 years ago.
Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), with support from Kenya Wildlife Society, translocated 15 Rothschild’s giraffes from the frequented Murchison Falls national park, to Kampala’s closest national park, Lake Mburo. The giraffes successfully arrived in Mburo at the end of last month and are now ready for viewing.
According to UWA, the current translocation is aimed at ensuring the survival of this endangered species given that there are just a few hundred of them left in the world. Moving some of them to a new park will ensure a small number that is easier to keep tabs on, and where their movements, health and general welfare will be easily monitored.
The translocation exercise is also a drive towards attaining ecological balance in Murchison Falls National Park. By reducing on the giraffes in Murchison (which has more than 900 giraffes), the struggle for resources among the giraffes, especially food is going to reduce. Less stress on Murchison’s vegetation will enable quicker regeneration of flora on which the giraffes feed.
Since the giraffes feast profoundly on the acacia woodland vegetation, in the future some of the park’s scenic areas and diverse biomes that have for long been hidden behind the acacia will be unwrapped for tourists. Consequently, with a clearer Mburo, many of the park’s grazers (browsers), which have for long preferred the neighbouring farmlands, will return to the park. The browsers, especially the zebras, prefer a finely flat area, which has short vegetation cover that permits them to spot their rival carnivores from a distance, and therefore craftily plan an escape.
For those who have ever visited Lake Mburo, this seems the perfect time to plan a return safari because with the introduction of the Rothschild’s giraffes, “the whispers of the wild” which define Mburo are certainly going to get louder.
The Rothschild’s giraffe
Named after the Tring Museum’s founder, Walter Rothschild, the Rothschild’s giraffe has also come to be known as the Ugandan giraffe because, of the not more than 1,600 Rothschild’s giraffes left in the world, only 800 are in the wild and the biggest population of these is actually in Uganda.
The most unique feature on the Rothschild’s giraffe is the ossicones on its head. This is the only subspecies to be born with five ossicones!
And that is not all. When it comes to height, which is the one feature giraffes can deservedly boost about, the Rothschild’s giraffe almost blows every other giraffe subspecies out of the ‘skies’. It measures up to six metres (about 20ft).
