National Parks Africa » Rubondo Island National Park

Rubondo Island:
Rubondo Island National Park is a large island in Lake Victoria. The whole area covers 457 square kilometres (182 square miles), half of which is water. A flight over the southern part of this largest lake in Africa will show Rubondo as the only island still extensively covered with forest. The trees and bush are set off most attractively by a fringe of shore with beaches and papyrus swamps. Professor Bernard Grzimek of the Frankfurt Zoo, who did so much to encourage the protection of homes for wild animals, took a special interest in Rubondo and helped to get it gazetted as a park in 1977.

Because Rubondo is offshore and the human population is restricted, some of the more endangered species such as rhinos, elephants, roan antelopes, suni, black and white colobus and chimpanzees were introduced. They are now thriving and it is hoped that their descendants will repopulate areas where numbers are currently depleted.

Hippos, bushbuck, sitatunga, vervet monkeys, mongooses, and crocodiles are among the indigenous species. There are no large predators on the island (though poachers come in canoes to kill rhinos), so it will be of interest to see how the populations of native and introduced species will regulate themselves. Besides the mammals, Rubondo has a good variety of reptiles, amphibians and insects and there are numerous lake, swamp, plains and forest birds you can probably see 100 different kinds of birds during a walk around part of the island.