Tanzania’s tree-climbing lions: Lake Manyara and Tarangire

Why a lion climbs

Lions are heavy, short-clawed and poor climbers compared with leopards. Most prides spend their lives on the ground. Where lions do climb regularly, the explanations offered by researchers and guides are practical rather than mysterious:

• Escaping biting flies, which are worse close to the ground.
• Catching a breeze and getting off hot or wet ground.
• Getting a view over long grass or bush.
• Learned behaviour. Cubs copy adults, so the habit runs in particular prides.

None of these is proven as the single cause, and it is likely a mix. What matters for visitors is that the behaviour belongs to certain prides in certain places, not to lions in general.

Lake Manyara

Lake Manyara National Park became known for tree-climbing lions decades ago, and the reputation has stuck. The park is narrow, squeezed between the Rift Valley escarpment and the lake, with groundwater forest, acacia woodland and open floodplain. Lions here have been seen resting in acacias and in the large mahogany and fig trees.

Sightings are irregular. Manyara’s lion population is small, and in some years the climbing prides are seen often, in others rarely. Go for the whole park — elephants in the forest, baboon troops, the birdlife on the lake shore and the escarpment views — and treat a lion in a tree as a bonus.

Tarangire

Tarangire lions also climb, particularly in the sausage trees and acacias along the river and in the southern woodland. Because Tarangire holds a larger lion population than Manyara, many guides now consider it at least as good a place to see the behaviour, especially in the dry season when prides stay close to the river.

How to improve your chances

• Give each park a proper game drive, not a quick pass on the way to somewhere else.
• Drive the middle of the day. Lions climb when it is hot, which is when many vehicles are back at the lodge.
• Scan horizontal branches. A lion in a tree looks like a heavy, tawny shape draped along a limb, very similar to how guides spot leopards.