Lion tracking experience in Queen Elizabeth National Park
Lion tracking experience in Queen Elizabeth National Park : Lion tracking experience offer an incredible encounter with the lions and is a perfect Uganda safari activity for lion pride enthusiasts, this experience is not your usual game viewing experience as you are guaranteed of spotting a lion pride.
In Uganda, lion tracking is done in Queen Elizabeth National Park. on this experience travelers get a chance to learn how to identify individual lions, distinguish behavior displays and conduct population viability studies.
About Queen Elizabeth National Park
Queen Elizabeth National Park is a popular Uganda savannah safari destination and one of the most enchanting national parks, the park is found in the western part of Uganda and it is spread across four districts of Kasese, Rubirizi, Rukingiri and Kamwenge covering an area of 2080 square kilometers.
The park was initially known as the Kazinga National Park but later changed in 1954 following the visit Queen Elizabeth II of England in Uganda. Queen Elizabeth National Park prides itself in a grgreat diversity of habitats that include lakes, savannah grasslands, forests and wetlands that serves as home to the biggest variety of mammals in the country.
Lion Tracking Experience
Lion tracking in Queen Elizabeth National Park is done in the northern section of the park in the Kasenyi section where researchers and trackers follow lions with lion calls tracing the signal of trackers which are tied on the neck of the lions.
Queen Elizabeth National Park hosts one of the highest number of lions in Uganda which makes it a wonderful destination in Uganda as well as East Africa to have an encounter with lions in large prides.
Lion tracking experience is done either in the morning or late evening and it is open to tourists every day. While on this activity, the pride of lions to be tracked have a lion with a radio collar attached in the neck and through a complex designed radio antenna, you are fully assured of seeing the lions with a team of researchers and during this experience you will learn the habits of the lions while observing them. Since lions move in prides of 3 – 25 individuals, there is a possibility of the lions being tracked numbers increasing without prior notice when an individual or multiple lions join the initial group.
While on the experience, you are advised to highly take note of nocturnal roars and their intensity with other animals like hyenas inclusive because anything distress has price. While on the tracking experience the researchers in company will equip you with all the various tricks used in tracking them down.
Among these tricks, you will be lectured on the ways the lions mark their territories that include
- lions will scent mark their territory by scraping the ground with the hind feet, creating shallow parallel scrapes of bare soil measuring approximately 12 cm in width and 20cm in length.
- Drying, sticky urine sprayed on a prominent bush is also a common sign left by lions as they mark their home.
- Rub their heads in bushes leaving inconspicuous blonde hairs behind.
- Lions move through tall grass leaving a very slight trail of bent grass
All these the tracks are availed to you during the lion tracking experience in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
As a way of reducing on the lions and also increase the quality of experience for the visitors, lion tracking experience is limited to a minimum number of visitors. While on this experience, visitors also get to view other wildlife species in the park such as elephants, cape buffaloes, antelopes among others.
Practical information about lion tracking in Queen Elizabeth National Park
- All visitors will record information on a datasheet, all of which will be added to the Uganda Large Predator Program (ULPP) database under Makerere University.
- All participants receive a certificate to take home as a souvenir
- Lion tracking experience is purely a research program making the adventure none profitable program done in dedication of research, conservation aimed at monitoring of predators which are colossally subsiding in the country. The lion tracking program is to antedate study that the accumulating pressure on predator’s habitats can’t shake their existence. It is led by Uganda Carnivore Program “UCP” that assign researchers responsibilities of tracking the prides which program extends to both leopards and lions
- One vehicle maximum (4×4 needed, not overlanders) per tracking group to ensure quality and better interaction. Currently, clients must provide their own vehicle.
- Lion tracking experience is done in the early morning or evening when the lions are most active
- The experience lasts for 1-3 hours
- Price for lion tracking experience excludes visitor entrance and night game drive fee
How to get to Queen Elizabeth National Park for lion tracking
The park can be reached by air or road.
By road – from Kampala – the capital of Uganda, there are two routes used to get to Queen Elizabeth National Park that is via Mbarara to the east of the park – covering a distance of 250 miles or Fort Portal to the north of the park covering a distance of 260 miles.
By Air – there domestic and chartered flights from either Entebbe International Airport or Kajjansi Airstrip flying to Mweya, Ishasha or Kasese Airstrip serving the park, the flight is approximately 1 hour. From the airport, you will be picked up by our guide and head to the park.
