How wildlife is flourishing again in Akagera – Africa's largest protected wetland and Rwanda's only ‘big five'
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Loading... - Ruguru Kangogo
- 29 Apr 2022
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There is movement among the trees. A family of elephants, from giants to tumbling babies, is moving through the forest towards a watering hole on the plain. One by one, they wade in, wallowing in the cool mud.
“Each adult elephant needs to drink 200 litres of water a day,” my guide Justus Itangishatse tells me. “They also use the mud to protect themselves from tsetse flies.”
From the trees behind our vehicle, a long procession of elephants appears. What started as a low-key bath-time has become a mass gathering. There is loud trumpeting and snorting, and trunks are wrapped around each other in affectionate greetings. Babies coat themselves in thick grey sludge and slide about, clambering on siblings’ backs. It is a joyful scene: 70 elephants living it up on a hot afternoon – a sign that all is well in Akagera National Park.
It hasn’t always been this way. Just over a decade ago, many of the animals that lived in Akagera, in eastern Rwanda, had disappeared. After the 1994 genocide ended, many refugees returned from neighbouring Tanzania. The Rwandan government gave away more than half the national park so people could raise their livestock.
Human-wildlife conflict increased; predator attacks on cattle were met with retaliatory poisonings. By 2001, all of Akagera’s lions and many other animals in the reduced, 1,122 sq km park had been killed.
But Akagera was given a reprieve in 2010, when the Rwanda Development Board partnered with conservation NGO African Parks. An electric fence was built to protect the park and an effective law enforcement system introduced, alongside community engagement projects.
Since then, lions and 18 critically endangered black rhinos have been reintroduced from South Africa, with five rhinos from European zoos. Last year, African Parks completed the largest ever single translocation of white rhinos, flying 30 from South Africa to Rwanda.
Once I arrive, I spend time around vast Lake Ihema and the thickly forested hills in the south. Wildlife-spotting is a little tough-going, as my trip coincides with the premature arrival of the wet season, long grass and thick vegetation keeping many animals out of sight. I see no lions and catch only a glimpse of a leopard, its silhouette disappearing through tall grass.
But there is plenty that is visible, especially around the north’s open plains: giraffes, zebras, topis, impalas, warthogs… “The grazers want to be out in the open, so they can see where predators are coming from,” Justus tells me, as the animals relax on Kilala Plain, one of the park’s largest grasslands.
Across the plain, I see a group of white rhino ambling among buffaloes and white egrets. Currently, these new arrivals share the park with 29 black rhinos, around 40 lions, up to 100 leopards, 85 Maasai giraffe and 133 elephants.
I stay at Migashi, a luxury camp set on the secluded shores of Lake Rwanyakizinga. “We’re very open, so we do get ‘visitors’,” manager Eric Dushime says.
“Leopards, hippos and buffaloes come through the grounds. And if you think about swimming, remember: the lake has 700 hippos and 500 crocodiles.” Read More…
