Is This Africa's Wildest National Park?

Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park is wild, remote and little known – and while a tiny fraction of visitors find their way here, East Africa’s greatest secret may not remain hidden for much longer…

- Graeme Green

The baboons were furious. High in the anches of a sausage tree, a leopard as lurking in the exact same area the Mwagusi riverbank that they’d selected for rest, play and grooming. It's hard to switch off and unwind hen there’s an apex predator in our midst. The adult males circled e tree, shrieking and grunting ith rage, while an impala grazed round the base, oblivious to the reat that waited above. Whiskers appeared, then piercing yellow eyes surveyed the scene below d found an opportunity too good miss. Target chosen, the leopard bounded headfirst down the tree, pushing off from the trunk and flying at the impala, snaring a leg in its jaws.

A frenzy followed. Berserk baboons jabbed violently at the leopard, while, in a cloud of dust, the impala fought for its life. It was an exhilarating scene and a rare sight. “I’ve been a guide here in Ruaha for nine years,” wildlife expert Tony Zephania told me afterwards, “and I’ve never seen a leopard hunt from a tree before.” Incredible animal sightings and behaviours are not rare in Ruaha National Park, though, and it’s not only life-and-death moments but feeding, playing, mating, bonding and much more. At 20,226 sq km (around the same size as Belize), it’s the largest national park in Tanzania, but also one of the least known.

Named after the Great Ruaha River that runs through it, this vast, remote wilderness sprawls across an ancient branch of the Great Rift Valley, where eastern and southern species of animals and plant life combine. Here, you find one of the continent’s largest lion populations (around 10% of the world’s remaining lions) as well as Tanzania’s biggest elephant population, plus cheetahs, leopards, hyena, giraffes, kudu and 574 species of bird, from lilac-breasted rollers to the endemic Ruaha hornbill.