Cape Town: Tygerberg Nature Reserve closed until further notice! [update]

update (16 February 2024): Tygerberg Nature Reserve reopened to the public on 2 February 2024. The reserve’s opening times are Monday to Friday from 07:30 till 18:00 and on weekends from 7.30 till 19:00.

The City of Cape Town has announced that the Tygerberg Nature Reserve is temporarily closed to allow for mop-up operations after a fire on Tygerberg Hills that broke out on 25 January 2024. The reserve will remain closed to the public until it is safe again to enter and the mopping-up operations have been completed. Luckily, no infrastructure was damaged in the fire.

"On the up-side, I can inform residents the area that burnt was old and in terms of ecological integrity the burn will rejuvenate the veld. We hope to see a myriad of spring flowers on the now blackened Tygerberg Hill by September," said the Cape Town's Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews.

Tygerberg Nature Reserve is a 388-hectare nature reserve in the northern suburbs of Cape Town. It is home to some 24 different mammal species, 137 bird species, 22 different reptiles, 7 types of frogs, and numerous different butterfly species. Of the 562 different plant species that can be found in the nature reserve, 23 are threatened, 8 are endemic to Cape Town, and 3 are endemic to Tygerberg itself. Tygerberg Nature Reserve is one of the few surviving pockets of the highly threatened Swartland Shale Renosterveld vegetation type.