Lake Nakuru National Park
Despite its small size, the Lake Nakuru National Park impresses with its huge variety of fauna and flora. The alkaline lake, with its salt solution, creates the best habitat for blue-green algae and minute crabs, called crustacean. This algae and crabs are the main food source for the lesser flamingos.
Approximately 30 percent of the world’s beautiful flamingo population reside at Lake Nakuru. The blue-green algae give the flamingos their typical pink feathers. Keep your camera ready as you might just catch thousands of these birds spreading their wings and suddenly taking flight – an experience not to be missed. The number of flamingos at any given time vary according to the water level and salt concentration of the lake.
In addition to the 450 different bird species, the Lake Nakuru National Park also offers protection to the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe and the two African rhinoceros species: the black and the white rhino. Between the 1970s and 1990s, the number of rhinos found in Kenya had decreased drastically due to poaching. In order to contribute to the preservation of the species, a breeding programme with 19 animals was started in Lake Nakuru National Park. The population numbers for rhinos have recovered and steadily increased over the years. Today, individual animals are regularly relocated to different regions in Kenya.
The Lake Nakuru National Park is also home to large buffalo herds, waterbucks, hippos and a wide variety of gazelle species. The “yellow” fever acacia forest on the riverbank, together with the taller trees, offers shade and the ideal hunting ground for leopards. The lions make their home and prefer to hunt in the short grass savannah in the northern Lake Nakuru National Park. Apart from elephants, you can see almost all the well-known animals of East Africa in this 188 square kilometre park.
Lake Nakuru is Kenya's most popular national park. The park's main feature is a large, shallow lake supporting great birdlife
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Lake Nakuru park is a habitat to over 100 endangered Rhinos distributed between the black and white rhinos; the park is also home to the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe and other 50 or more animal species that include buffalos, waterbucks, lions, impalas and many more.
Lake Nakuru National Park (188 km2, 73 mi2), was created in 1961 around Lake Nakuru, near Nakuru Town. It is best known for its thousands, sometimes millions of flamingos nesting along the shores. The surface of the shallow lake is often hardly recognizable due to the continually shifting mass of pink.
The mammals include; giraffes, monkeys, warthogs, a large population of black and white rhinos, lions, cheetahs, leopards, and buffalos among others. Other common Lake Nakuru animals include hyenas, wildebeest, black-and-white colobus monkeys, Vervet monkeys, and Olive Baboons.
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