Night game drives involve sitting on the safari vehicles and drive through the parks to see animals and birds in the nights. Night game drives are conducted in parks with savanna vegetation. In Rwanda, Night game drives are done in Akagera national park.
Akagera National Parc is located in the east of region of the Rwanda protecting a variety of birds and wild animals. It is easily accessed from Kigali; it is 3hours drive to Akagera national park.
The census involved a detailed count of 11 mammal species including elephant, buffalo, eland, hippopotamus, giraffe, roan, warthog, zebra, waterbuck, impala and topi in Akagera. Akagera National park also protects over 525 bird species; this reflects the extremely wide diversity of habitat. 44 species of raptor, Papyrus Gonolek, Shoebill Storkand a good number of Palearctic migrants, amongst which Lesser Kestrel, Great Snipe and Black-winged have been recorded. The park represents the northern limit of distribution of a number of Zambezian biome species, including Sauza’s Shrike, Arnot’s Chat, and Long-tailed Cisticola. One species of the Guinea–Congo Forests biome, seven of the Afrotropical Highlands biome, nine of the eleven species of the Lake Victoria Basin biome that occur in Rwanda have been recorded at this site.
Night game drive is among the new activities introduced in Akagera National park of Rwanda. It is aiming at enabling tourists see the night moving animals. Animals like leopards are rarely seen during the day. Other night moving animals (nocturnal) include cats, bush babies among others.
The vehicle driving night games should be having sport light bulbs, 4wheel drive and driven by experienced driver.
REASONS FOR NIGHT GAME DRIVES
- Night game drives exposes visitor to night moving animals which are rarely seen during day time. Some of the night moving animals include; leopards, bush babies, cats among others.
- Night game drives enable tourist with fixed day time view animals at night.
- Some tourists fear day time sunshine so, they decide to go night game drives.
- Some tourists want to know how animals behavour of wildlife at night.