It’s one of Uganda’s most spectacular parks with 1,442 sq.km and harbours scenery unsurpassed in any other park in East Africa. It lies in the rugged, semi-arid valleys of Karamoja province in Kabongo district on the far northern border with Sudan.
Kidepo Valley is the most remote national park ‘it could not be any better’ is a common comment on the scenery by tourists who often promise and do come back to Kidepo.
This park offers breathtaking savannah landscapes which end in rugged horizon, a huge latitudinal range and correspondingly wide climatic conditions have evolved an extremely diverse flora. As a result the variety of animal species in the park is equally abundant including many which are found nowhere else in Uganda. Carnivore species unique to Kidepo and Karamoja region include the bat-eared fox, striped hyena, aardwolf, caracal, cheetah and hunting dog.
Less common ungulates include the greater and lesser kudu, chandler’s mountain reedbuck, klipspringer, dikdik and bright gazelle, beisaoryx and roan antelope have been severely depleted by poachers in the recent years. Among other large ungulates are elephant, burchell’s zebra, bush pig, warthog, rothschild giraffe, cape buffalo, eland, bush buck, bush duskier, defassa water buck, bohor reed buck, Jackson’s hartebeest and oribi. Other wildlife includes tree climbing lions, several small cats, black-backed jackal and side-striped jackal, elephants, leopard, buffalo.
Kidepo Valley is also a palace to over 475 bird species, some of East Africa’s rarest and most sought after birds such as black-breasted barbet and Karamojaapallis.
Others also worth noting are verreaux’s eagle, Egyptian vulture, pygmy falcon, four species of hornbills; the red-billed, yellow-billed, jackson’s hornbill and the giant Abyssinaia ground hornbill.
The Kidepo River Valley is also another splendid view dominated by Borassus palm forest, the Kanangorok hot springs and many other attractions.