It is very important to recognize the fact that Mwanza begun it journey to growth and development from the time of slave trade and started with the sale of the caravans of the leaders of Zanzibar called the Sultans by then in the due course of searching of gold, ivory and slaves. Historians believe that people like Dr. David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, John Hannington Speke and Richard Francis Burton used the same route and they ended up in Mwanza in 1850s while Speke was searching for the source of the Nile and after his death and buried in Kagaye village of Mwanza, the place became very popular.
Aside from that, Mwanza is well-known as the rock city something that makes it touristic place too thus the reason why the Saanane National Park was established within the city from where the visitors are able to watch different types of wild animals in an open area. This Island has got lots of attractions, Boat expedition can also be organized at the National Park’s offices which is at Capri Point in Nyamagana District and the name Saanane was got from Mzee Saanane Chawandi who was the owner of the Island before it became the first a Zoo that Tanzania had in 1964 with the major objective being to protect the interest and conservation of wildlife as well as setting up recreation centre in Mwanza so says Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA).
Currently there are activities like rock climbing, picnics, game viewing and bird watching, along the shores of Lake Victoria shores , while the wildlife include the buffalo, bushbuck, dik dik, elephant, eland, impala, black rhino, topi, warthog, and wildebeest. There also the zebra, monkeys, giraffe, porcupine and crocodiles but the animals like rhinos are kept in cages. The Island became a Game Reserve in 1991 and last year, the Tanzania government made public it intention to have this Island become wildlife adaptation place from just being a forest reserve that it has been, it declared this through the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources.
Mr. Ezekiel Maige the minister of tourism believes that this will help improve on the number of National Parks that they have which are 15 to 16 by next year and will become the second National Park to stride Lake Victoria. According to the media, Paschal Shelutete who is TANAPA public relations manager said that this park will be accommodating animals like the impala, rock hyrax, velvet monkeys, wild cats, clawless otters and De-brazzas monkeys. Meanwhile the water ones will include all types of fish, crocodiles, water snakes and monitor lizards, other reptiles, tortoises, grass snakes, pythons and agama lizards.
Ms. Rukia Juma Mallya, the Saanane Island National Park warden in charge of tourism also mentioned that this park will be a role model to other game parks. At the moment, this park gets about 250 visitors per month among which about 180- 200 are local tourists she added. It was gazette in 2011 and became the smallest National Park in East Africa of 0.7 square kilometers comprising of both dry land and Water. Shelutete said that the are plans to introduce other new animal species to improve on the islands’ wildlife variety.
GORILLA SAFARI NEWS
