Giraffes to be introduced in Lake Mburo

Mburo National Park will benefit from the new innovations at Uganda Wildlife Authority of transferring animals from one place to another. According to the public relations of Uganda Wildlife Authority Mr. Jossy Muhangi, a starter project of twelve giraffes will be transferred from Murchison Falls National Park to lake Mburo National Park this year. This is meant to boost both international and domestic tourism and also making lake Mburo a popular national park just like Queen Elizabeth National Park and Murchison Falls National Park.

Lake Mburo has been unique from other national parks due to the presences of impalas that cannot be found in any other Ugandan National Parks as well as Zebras and with the addition of giraffes to this small national park, the number of tourists both international and domestic are expected to increase and probably the number of days spent in lake Mburo National Park by individual tourists will also increase since the park will be more attractive than it has been before.

Where this project will work of fail remains a question to be answered by you and me as it should be remembered that the creation of Lake Mburo National Park was a forceful one where the government forcefully gazatted communal land into a national park and because of this, the local community who used to benefit from grazing their animals in this area never loved the idea something that resulted in the poisoning and killing of all lions in the park. As a result, consultations with the local community were made and they later agreed that the local community could use part of the National Park land for grazing.

Last year, Uganda Wildlife Authority thought of attracting more tourists to Lake Mburo National Park by introducing a pride of lions but those who visit the National Park say that they have never gotten any chance of spotting them while on any game drive. They are very shy and hide but can be heard roaring at night. This looks like a failed project but time will tell if they will adopt to the new environement. Questions on the survival of these giraffes will be raised as lake Mburo National Park has a small space for such animals and we are yet to see how the local community will react to this.

Lake Mburo National Park is the closest to Kampala city and if such innovations work out, then we are likely to have many people visiting this national park and excuses of saying that there is less to see and that the park is used as a stop over to break the long drives to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park gorillas will long be gone. More tourists mean more revenue through park entrance fees, boat cruises, walking safaris, increased bed nights for lodges in the National Park such as Mihingo, Mpono, Lake Mburo Safari Lodge, Arcadia cottages, Rwonyo camp among other lodges. It also means that there will be competition between national park since initially, each national park has been very unique and not similar to others but if this concept is neglected, we are likely to see more national parks neglected.