Uganda Wildlife Authority: Queen Elizabeth National Park - A Medley of Wonders (video)

update (18 April 2013): Uganda Wildlife Authority has released eight more videos about its National Parks. Click here for the videos.

Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Uganda's semi-autonomous government agency that conserves and manages the country’s wildlife, has released a new promotional video (it is acutally more a slide show) about Queen Elizabeth National Park. Uganda's most popular and most-visited tourist destination is located about 380 kilometres (by road) southwest of Kampala. Queen Elizabeth National Park, covering an estimated approx. 2000km², is home to 95 species of mammal, to about 600 species of birds and is famous for its volcanic features.

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The tree-climbing lions of Uganda

It is relatively rare for lions to climb trees. Only two populations of lions in world are actually known to be climbing trees as part of their every day behaviour. One population can be found in Ishasha which is in the south sector of the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda and the other one is can be found in the Lake Manyara region in Uganda and Southern Tanzania. It is believed that these lions are climbing trees as protection against the biting tsetse flies at ground level or possibly to catch any breeze to stay cool.

That the lions of Ishasha are climbing trees appears to be a learnt behaviour and can therefore be seen as a culture trait of these particular lion population. It remains unclear why this behaviour is rare in other lions groups. Kudos @ KipperSarnie for the video footage!