by Karl Schaefer
Page 2 : Queen Elizabeth National Park
In February of 2003 and 2004, I traveled to Uganda as part of the UNITE Project Our mission was to conduct workshops with Ugandan Teachers and visit the schools in order to promote environmental education and conservation techniques. When the workshop and school visits were completed, our group traveled to Queen Elizabeth National Park where we had the chance to go on safaris to observe elephants, hippopotami, lions, kobs, waterbucks, wart hogs, leopard along with many other animals. Queen Elizabeth also has over five hundred and fifty species of birds and fifty-four types of raptors. The park was established in 1952, is approximately 800 square miles and is one of the oldest in Uganda. The terrain is mostly savanna grasslands dotted with acacia and euphorbia trees.
We stayed at the splendid Mweya Safari Lodge. The Lodge overlooks the Kazinga Channel, Lake Edward and Lake George from its location high on a hill. From here we accompanied our guides each morning in search of wildlife that calls the vast park home. The lodge features all the amenities of any four star lodge except for the warthogs that surround the hotel kneeling eating grass.
We saw many elephants each day as the large beasts feed in the mornings and evenings in the savanna grasslands. They spend the warmest part of the day at the Kazinga Channel drinking and cooling off. On one day we saw a herd that must have numbered two hundred elephants along the shore of the Kazinga Channel! Elephants of every size would appear as we drove down the roads that connect the many areas of the park. It was quite common to see one elephant and just as quickly be surrounded by a herd as they came through the trees on their march to the channel. Our van driver (David) was constantly adjusting the position of our van, as we needed to keep an escape route in the event one of the adults would happen to charge the van. Hearing the trumpet of an elephant was an incredible experience especially as I saw one elephant chase another elephant past our van in some sort of territorial challenge.
One of the highlights of any visit to Queen Elizabeth National Park is a boat ride on the Kazinga Channel. The channel is brimming with wildlife, as it is the main freshwater supply for the parks animals. The boat ride brings you up close and personal with the hippopotami, storks, and a multitude of birds that seem to love to hang out on the backs of the floating hippopotami. We learned that the hippopotami are the most dangerous and vicious animal in Queen Elizabeth and account for the most human deaths due to their aggressiveness and the fact that when the hippopotamus is submerged you are not aware you are encroaching on their territory.
My personal highlight was the sighting of a leopard as it moved through the tall grass. We had just left a pride of sixteen lions when our guide spotted it moving just off the road. It paid us no attention as it went about its way. I was able to get good pictures and even some video before it was lost in the tall savanna grass.
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