Katavi

Katavi lies in the far west of Tanzania, in the Mlele and Nsimbo districts of Katavi Region, with its main gate at Sitalike, about 38 km south of the regional capital, Mpanda. It was gazetted in 1974 at 1,823 km² and extended in 1997 to its present 4,471 km², which makes it the fifth-largest of Tanzania's national parks, after Nyerere, Ruaha, Serengeti and Burigi-Chato. TANAPA gives its altitude as about 825 metres.

Most of the park is miombo woodland. What draws people is the open country in the middle of it: the Katuma river runs through the park and feeds two seasonal lakes, Lake Katavi in the north and Lake Chada in the south-east, with the wide grass plain of Katisunga between them. In the rains these flood into reed beds and shallow water; through the dry season they shrink back to the river and a few pools, and borassus palms stand over the dried grass.

The ecologist Tim Caro, who counted the park's mammals from the ground in the 1990s, found that the highest densities were around Lake Chada. He also found something that runs against the usual story. Animal numbers did not change much between wet and dry seasons, so the lakes do not seem to draw in herds from outside the park. They hold very large numbers of animals that are there all year.

Katavi is known above all for its hippos. As the Katuma shrinks through the dry season, they have nowhere else to go, and by September and October hundreds can be packed into a single pool of water and mud, with crocodiles along the banks. With so little room the bulls fight often, which TANAPA's brochure calls "truly a hair-raising watch".

The river is not only shrinking with the seasons. Upstream of the park, farmers have dammed the Katuma to irrigate rice. A 2013 study by Caro and colleagues looked at 23 mammal species, counted from vehicles between 1995 and 2011, and found that the number of animals seen each year was linked both to the dams and to poaching. Which one mattered more depended on the species. An earlier study of aerial counts found that several large grazers had declined across the wider Katavi–Rukwa ecosystem between 1988 and 2002.

In 2019 the problem came to a head. With the pools drying, hippos were leaving the park and coming into conflict with villagers, and the government first proposed moving some hippos and crocodiles out of the park. According to Africa Geographic, President John Magufuli stepped in on 11 October 2019, saying that hippos "too depend on the same resource for their survival". Water was trucked in to the hippo pool, and work began on a concrete weir about a metre high, below the Ikuu river bridge, to hold a permanent pool.

Work has also started on the catchment. In 2022 a project began planting 200,000 native mahogany trees (Khaya anthotheca, a vulnerable species) along the Katuma in four villages upstream of the park.

Buffalo. Caro found the weight of animals per square kilometre in the park "extremely high", mostly because of the huge number of buffalo. TANAPA goes further. Its brochure says Katavi has "the largest herds of buffaloes on the planet", often three times the size of the Serengeti's. We have not found a count that proves either claim.

Elephants. The last TAWIRI dry-season count we could find, in September 2014, estimated 5,738 elephants across the Katavi–Rukwa ecosystem, about 3,100 of them in the Katavi part of the count. The 2012 estimate had been 7,107. The same survey counted 65 elephant carcasses alongside the 529 live elephants its spotters saw.

Grazers and predators. TANAPA lists zebra, topi, impala, hartebeest, giraffe and Defassa waterbuck, and the rare roan and sable antelope. It says lions and leopards are drawn by the amount of prey, that spotted hyenas and leopards are often seen along the woodland edges, and TANAPA says the park's wild dogs keep mostly to the escarpment.

Birds. More than 400 species are recorded. Storks, herons, spoonbills, plovers and open-billed storks gather in the wetlands, including yellow-billed and saddle-billed storks. Fish eagles, bateleurs and white-backed vultures are common. Migrant birds are present from November to April.

Locusts. The grass plains around Ikuu are one of Africa's breeding grounds for the red locust, and swarms that form here can spread far beyond Tanzania. In 2009 a UN-backed campaign sprayed them with a fungal biopesticide here, on the Lake Rukwa plains and in the Malagarasi basin. It was the first time biopesticides had been used against these pests on a large scale in Africa.

The park is named after Katabi, a spirit. The sign at his tree says the Bende and Pimbwe peoples, who once lived where the park is now, believed Katabi lived in Lake Katavi. They believed he could bring good fortune and protection, show them medicines to cure disease, even stop the rains and keep away epidemics such as smallpox. TANAPA's brochure remembers him as a legendary hunter.

His tamarind tree, near Lake Katavi, is still visited. TANAPA says local people still leave offerings at its foot to ask for his blessing, and it recommends the tree to visitors.

By air. Most visitors fly in by charter to Mpanda airport, the Sitalike airstrip or the Ikuu airstrip inside the park, often as part of a trip to Mahale. TANAPA also lists a scheduled flight from Dar es Salaam to Mpanda three times a week.

By road and rail. TANAPA's brochure gives the road distances: 1,513 km from Dar es Salaam via Mbeya, 1,392 km from Dar es Salaam via Tabora, about 1,016 km from Arusha via Tabora and 741 km from Mwanza via Tabora and Inyonga. You can also take the train from Dar es Salaam to Mpanda, changing at Tabora, and then public transport for the last 38 km to Sitalike, where a game drive can be arranged.

Fees. Katavi is in TANAPA's lower band, with one rate all year: USD 30 per non-East African adult per day, USD 10 for children aged 5 to 15 and TZS 5,000 for East African citizens, all before 18 per cent VAT, so USD 35.40 in practice. Staying in a lodge or camp inside the park adds a concession fee of USD 30 per night. A walking safari costs USD 20 for one to four hours or USD 25 for longer, a night game drive costs USD 50, and a park guide costs USD 20 per group per day.

Staying. TANAPA has cottages at the park headquarters, with a shower block, toilets and a place to cook and eat, and a rest house at USD 30 a night. There are public campsites at USD 30 per person per night and special campsites at USD 50, and TANAPA advises booking ahead. There are a few private camps inside the park; outside it, there are lodges, camps and hotels at Sitalike and in Mpanda.

When to go. Katavi has one rainy season, from November to May. The dry season, June to October, is the best time to visit, and the end of it is when the hippos and the game are most crowded around the water. TANAPA gives daytime temperatures of 24–30 °C and nights of 16–18 °C.

How few people come. Wikipedia gives a figure of just over 1,500 foreign visitors in 2012/13, out of about 900,000 across all of Tanzania's national parks. That is old, but nothing we have seen suggests the park has become busy.