The Tree Climbing Lions of Ishasha in Queen Elizabeth National Park are a major highlight during a game viewing safari experience through these game rich grasslands of Ishasha. These local prides have turned the less known Ishasha grassland plains located on the southern tip of Queen Elizabeth NP into a premier wildlife destination on its own offering a superb wildlife experience.
Rare Behavior..?
This unique inherent behavior of these lions uncommon elsewhere make game drive experience through this wilderness rewarding. Other game encountered on drives including the Topi, Buffalo, Elephants, Kob, Leopard, Hyena and tree climbing lion prides. Ishasha Tree Climbing Lions – a special breed? The African Lion is the most social of all the cat’s family, living in prides of variable sizes comprising of related females, their young and headed by a single or coalition of males at the helm.
Habitually across their range, lions are more active during the night and early morning, taking to shade during the heat of the day. Not so with the Ishasha tree climbing lion prides! As the morning get hotter on the plains, these prides go arboreal lounging up in several fig trees several feet above the grasslands. This unique inherent behavior trait has made these lion prides special and a spectacular sighting to behold on safari here.
Over the course of time, wildlife behavior experts and seasoned safari guides leading wildlife experiences through Ishasha have attributed this inherent pattern as a genetic behavior passed on from one generation to another. The reasoning suggests that since lions are extremely social cats this behavior is learned at an earliest stage since they raise their young communally.
Local ranger guides and monitoring teams in Queen Elizabeth NP have reasoned that this unique behavior is an adaptation to escape the stinging insects common on Ishasha grasslands. And also, a mere opportunistic adaptation that give lions a vantage look-out points across their vast game-rich grasslands. The rangers continue to reason that this adaptation passes on from generation to generation.
Elsewhere in our region, the similar behavior of Ishasha lion prides is displayed by a set of lion prides in Lake Manyara National Park in northern Tanzania. For years these lions have preferred lounging high in numerous acacia trees during the day more often and regular than in any other national park.
Final Word
From our own experience and observations as naturalist guides, there is a common factor that is behind every behavior across the natural world, that is adaptability. Each species finds and adapts to its niche of habitat that meets its basic needs of food, safety which ensures its survival and reproduction after its own kind.
As our understanding of the natural world keeps developing, we recognize how fragile and important these wildernesses are and a wide diversity of flora and fauna they protect. With this recognition comes a need to promote responsible travel that leave less impact upon these ecosystems.