by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang H. Thome
With all logistics in place now at the African Parks’ managed Akagera National Park in Rwanda will 8 lions from Kenya next month make the journey to the land of a thousand hills, restoring the realm of the Lion King.
In the past were the indigenous lion populations in and around Akagera wiped out by herders trying to protect their livestock and villagers fearing raids, often using poison, inflicting a cruel death on the big cats.
African Parks has upgraded the electric fence by adding both height as well as a bottom element to make sure that the lions will neither be able to jump the fence nor try to crawl through below it.
The return of the lions next month will provide tourists with the added attraction of now being able to see four of the big five with only the rhinos missing from the check list.
Local tourism stakeholders in Kigali expressed their appreciation that the Kenyan government has allowed the Kenya Wildlife Service to send a pride of lions to Rwanda, attributing this to the warm and friendly relations betwee the two countries, which together with Uganda have last year formed the so called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ united by common goals to improve infrastructure, increase trade and work hand in hand on a number of other areas including security cooperation. For more details on Rwanda’s tourism industry and the three national parks.
