Category: Mahale

Mahale Mountains National Park is in far western Tanzania, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Uvinza District of the Kigoma Region, roughly 130 kilometres south of Kigoma town. Visitors reach it by light aircraft or boat on…

Accommodation in Mahale comes down to two lakeside camps and a set of simple park bandas and campsites, all reached by boat since the park has no roads. Guests on a Mahale chimpanzee trekking safari stay at Greystoke Mahale or…

The animals you are most likely to see in Mahale are yellow baboons on the beaches, red-tailed and blue monkeys in the canopy, red colobus in the valley forest, African fish eagles along the shoreline, and the habituated M group…

The beaches you can visit along Lake Tanganyika in Mahale are the camp beaches at Kangwena and the neighbouring lodge shoreline, plus a string of small sand coves between rocky headlands reached by boat, and the beaches at park headquarters.…

Mahale has no fixed, named chimpanzee trekking routes. Instead, guides use a network of research trails radiating from the Kansyana area and the lakeshore camps, choosing a line each morning based on where the M group nested the previous night.…

The top reasons to visit Mahale are trekking the habituated M group chimpanzees, swimming and snorkelling in Lake Tanganyika the same afternoon, walking a park with no roads and almost no other visitors, climbing Mount Nkungwe, and watching the sun…

September is the single best month for chimpanzee viewing in Mahale, with August and October close behind, because the M group ranges on the lower slopes near the lakeshore and trekking conditions are at their most settled. A Mahale chimpanzee…

Mahale's bird list runs to somewhere between 337 and 398 recorded species, headed by African fish eagle, palm-nut vulture, giant kingfisher, crested guineafowl and Ross's turaco, with forest species making up the bulk and being far harder to spot. Birdwatching…

Beyond the chimpanzees, Mahale holds lions, leopard, buffalo, elephant, roan and sable antelope, bushpig, blue duiker, bushbuck, giant squirrel, porcupine, mongoose and over 300 bird species, though most are seen occasionally rather than reliably. Visitors come across them on forest…

Conservation in Mahale runs through the Kyoto University chimpanzee research project, Frankfurt Zoological Society's park support work, The Nature Conservancy's Tuungane project with Pathfinder International, and the Greater Mahale Ecosystem Research and Conservation Project, all working alongside Tanzania National Parks.…