Tree-Climbing Lions: Lake Manyara and Ishasha

Lions are not built for climbing. A lioness weighs somewhere around 120 to 180 kilograms, a male up to 250. That’s a lot of animal to haul up a trunk, and it’s why leopards own the trees in most of Africa.

But in a few places, lions climb as a matter of routine. Two of them made the behaviour famous: the Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, and Lake Manyara National Park in northern Tanzania.

If you want to see it, here’s what you need to know, including the part most safari brochures leave out: Ishasha’s lions are in serious trouble.

Why do lions climb trees?

The honest answer is that nobody has proved it. There are good ideas and field observations, but no study has tested the popular explanations in Ishasha or Manyara.

Much of what we know comes from George Schaller’s classic study of Serengeti lions, published in 1972. He saw lions climb trees to play, to lie on broad horizontal branches, to scan the plains for prey, and to get away from buffalo and hyenas. He also noted that males climbed less often than females and cubs, which makes sense given the weight difference.

Panthera, the wild cat conservation organisation, adds a few points. Young lions climb quite often. Lions will go up a tree to steal a leopard’s kill. And the shape of the tree may matter more than anything in the lions’ heads: a big fig or acacia with low, thick, near-horizontal limbs is easy to walk up. A tall, straight trunk isn’t.

Two explanations you’ll read everywhere are escaping biting flies and catching a cooler breeze off the ground. Both are plausible. Neither has been shown to be the reason, so treat them as guesses.

Ishasha: the fig trees of Queen Elizabeth

Ishasha is the remote southern sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park, along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The park as a whole covers 1,978 km², and most visitors stay in the north around the Kazinga Channel. Ishasha takes more effort to reach, and it’s quieter for it.

The lions here use fig trees. The Uganda Wildlife Authority describes them resting in the branches, waiting to ambush the Uganda kob below. Kob are the main antelope on these open grasslands, and a lion in a fig has a very good view of them.

It isn’t only lionesses. Males climb in Ishasha too, just less often.

How to look for them

Drive the Ishasha tracks slowly and check every large fig. Lions rest through the heat of the day, and a tail hanging from a branch is often the first thing you notice. There’s no guarantee. The lions move, some days they’re down in the grass, and some weeks you won’t find them at all. A ranger or guide who knows which trees the pride has been using recently makes a real difference.

Ishasha is often combined with gorilla trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, further south. The roads are rough, so a 4×4 is the sensible choice. For somewhere to stay, see our Queen Elizabeth Where to Stay page.

The part the brochures leave out

Ishasha’s lions are declining, and people are killing them.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which has monitored these lions since 2005, puts Ishasha’s population at just 20 to 35 animals. Over ten years, lion density there fell from about six to about four per 100 km².

Across the wider Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area the picture is worse. A survey in 2018 estimated about 71 adult lions. A repeat survey in 2022 and 2023 estimated about 39, a decline of nearly 50 percent.

In March 2021, six lions were found dead in Ishasha, along with ten vultures. They had been poisoned, and most of their body parts had been removed. Two men were later caught with four lion heads, fifteen legs and three litres of lion fat, and in September 2022 a court sentenced each of them to eight years and seven months.

Three years earlier, in April 2018, eleven lions were poisoned in the north of the same park, near Hamukungu fishing village: three lionesses and eight cubs. National Geographic reported that they belonged to a pride known for climbing euphorbia trees. The suspected motive was retaliation for cattle killed by lions.

The threats on record are retaliation for livestock losses, snaring, and demand for lion parts and fat. None of this is a reason to stay away. Park fees and tourism help pay for the rangers who protect these lions. It is a reason to go with realistic expectations, and to travel with operators who use local guides.

Lake Manyara: the lions that made it famous

Lake Manyara National Park lies at the foot of the Rift Valley escarpment in northern Tanzania, usually as a short stop between Arusha, Tarangire and the Ngorongoro highlands. A large share of the park is the soda lake itself. On land there’s groundwater forest with mahogany and fig trees, and open acacia woodland.

Manyara’s tree-climbing lions became a safari legend decades ago, long before most of today’s camps existed. The photo here was taken in the park in December 1973.

Today, go with modest hopes. Africa Geographic describes Manyara’s tree-climbing lions as elusive, sometimes found in the acacia woodland, and suggests Serengeti lions have probably overtaken them as the ones people see in trees. We found no reliable current count of the park’s lions.

The park is still worth a half day or a day for its forest, elephants, baboons and the birdlife along the lake shore. If a lion is draped over a branch, treat it as a bonus.

Other places lions climb trees

You’ll often read that Ishasha and Manyara are the only places lions climb trees. They aren’t.

• Serengeti, Tanzania. Schaller’s tree-climbing observations came from here, and lions in trees are regularly photographed in the Serengeti.
• Kasenyi, northern Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. Lions here climb candelabra euphorbia trees. In 2025 Mongabay described eight lions wedged into a single euphorbia.
• Kafue, Zambia. Panthera mentions tree-climbing lions in Kafue National Park.

Anywhere lions live near big, low-branched trees, you may see it. It’s just more predictable in some prides than in others.

Before you go

• Sightings are never guaranteed in either park.
• Park entry fees change regularly. Check the current tariffs with the Uganda Wildlife Authority and Tanzania National Parks before you budget.
• Ishasha is remote. Allow time, and use a 4×4.

Sources

• Uganda Wildlife Authority, Queen Elizabeth National Park
• Wildlife Conservation Society Uganda, Lions
• Braczkowski et al., 2024, lion survey of the Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area, Global Ecology and Conservation 56
• The Independent (Uganda), 2022, two sentenced for killing six lions
• National Geographic, 2018, lions poisoned in Uganda
• Mongabay, 2025, Uganda’s tree-climbing lions grow scarce
• Tanzania National Parks, Lake Manyara National Park
• Africa Geographic, Lake Manyara National Park
• Fragoso et al., 2023, acta ethologica 26 (citing Schaller, The Serengeti Lion, 1972)
• Panthera, 2024, Why do lions climb trees?
• Smithsonian’s National Zoo, Lion

Top photo: Charles J. Sharp / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons