Can i see Lions and Leopards in Queen Elizabeth?

Yes — and in ways that are quite unlike anywhere else in Africa.

Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda is home to four of the Big Five — lions, leopards, elephants, and buffaloes — and it offers not one but two completely different lion experiences in its two contrasting sectors. The park’s northern Kasenyi Plains provide classic open-savannah encounters with prides moving through Uganda kob country at dawn and dusk. The remote southern Ishasha sector offers something the rest of the world can barely replicate: lions climbing trees. And leopards, while never easy to find anywhere in Africa, inhabit the park in reasonable numbers and are sighted with enough frequency — particularly on early morning and night drives — that every game drive carries a genuine thread of anticipation.

Uganda’s most visited national park covers 1,978 square kilometres of extraordinarily diverse habitat — open savannah, volcanic crater lakes, wetlands, riverine forest, and the famous Kazinga Channel waterway — and its wildlife diversity reflects that landscape variety. It is a park where, in the space of a single well-planned day, you can watch tree-climbing lions in the morning, cruise past two thousand hippos in the afternoon, and spot a leopard hunting in the spotlight of an evening drive. For safari travelers visiting Uganda, Queen Elizabeth National Park is the country’s most complete and multi-layered wildlife destination, and its lions and leopards are the most celebrated and most anticipated animals within it.

This guide tells you exactly what to expect from lion and leopard viewing in Queen Elizabeth National Park, how to maximise your chances, and how to plan the ideal visit.

Lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park — The Full Picture

Queen Elizabeth National Park currently supports approximately 40 lions — a population that has declined significantly over the past decade due to retaliatory poisoning by cattle farmers and bushmeat snaring, according to a major 2025 conservation study by researchers from Griffith University working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority. While this figure is lower than the lion populations of Murchison Falls National Park (approximately 240) and represents a conservation concern that the Uganda Carnivore Program is actively working to address, it remains a large enough population to make lion sightings a realistic and frequently achieved experience for visitors to the park.

What makes the lions of Queen Elizabeth National Park genuinely special — and what draws dedicated wildlife travelers from around the world specifically to this park — is the extraordinary behaviour of the Ishasha prides. The lions of Ishasha climb trees. Entire family groups lounge in the broad canopy of giant sycamore fig trees during the heat of the day, sprawled across branches several metres above the ground in a posture of relaxed ownership that is simultaneously completely unexpected and utterly magnificent to witness. This is a behaviour so rare that it is documented in only one other place on the entire continent — Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania — making the Ishasha tree-climbing lions a genuinely unique wildlife spectacle that Queen Elizabeth National Park holds almost exclusively.

The northern Kasenyi Plains sector, near the park’s main tourism hub at Mweya, provides a more traditional open-savannah lion experience. The Kasenyi Plains are dominated by Uganda kob — the national animal of Uganda — grazing in vast, golden-coated herds across the open grassland, and wherever prey concentrations of this scale exist, predators are never far behind. Lions in the Kasenyi sector are encountered on classic game drives in 4WD safari vehicles, typically spotted resting in shade, moving between water sources, or — on the finest early morning drives — actively hunting or returning from overnight kills.

Lion Tracking in Queen Elizabeth — A Unique Conservation Experience

One of the most distinctive and exclusive wildlife experiences available in Queen Elizabeth National Park is lion tracking — a specialised activity conducted in partnership with the Uganda Carnivore Program (UCP) that goes far beyond the standard game drive.

Lion tracking takes place exclusively on the Kasenyi Plains in the northern section of the park. Some of the lion prides in this area have been fitted with GPS radio collars as part of ongoing conservation and population monitoring research. During a lion tracking experience, a small group of visitors joins actual wildlife researchers and armed park rangers in the field, using radio telemetry equipment to follow the signal from a collared individual and locate the pride in real time.

The process transforms the hunt for lions from a matter of luck and driving instinct into a scientific, methodical, and deeply engaging pursuit. Your vehicle moves across the open savannah with the researcher tracking the signal strength and direction, gradually zeroing in on the pride’s location until the lions appear — resting in shade, moving through the long grass, or interacting within their family group. The activity typically lasts two to three hours and begins with a briefing at the park headquarters.

What makes lion tracking genuinely different from a standard game drive is not just the improved success rate in finding the animals, but the quality and depth of the encounter. Because you are in the company of researchers who know the specific individuals within each pride — their ages, relationships, territories, and behavioural patterns — the time spent observing the lions becomes richly contextualised. You are not just watching lions. You are learning about specific animals within a documented population, understanding the pressures they face, and contributing through your permit fee directly to the conservation research that is working to protect them.

Lion tracking in Queen Elizabeth National Park is bookable through licensed tour operators or directly with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, and because daily slots are limited, advance booking is strongly recommended. Our 8 Days Uganda Big Five Safari Adventure includes Queen Elizabeth National Park and can be built to include the lion tracking experience. Our 7 Days Ultimate Uganda Primate Safari also covers Queen Elizabeth alongside Uganda’s primate parks and can incorporate lion tracking as a dedicated activity. Frena Adventures’ Uganda safari holidays offer expert guidance on building Queen Elizabeth itineraries that include this unique experience.

The Ishasha Tree-Climbing Lions — What to Expect

The Ishasha sector is approximately two to three hours’ drive from the main Mweya area of Queen Elizabeth National Park, following a road through the southern part of the park and the community land between the two sectors. The journey itself is rewarding — the landscape changes from the relatively open northern savannah to more dramatic, undulating terrain of the south, with fig tree lines tracing the course of the Ntungwe River and the distant ridges of the Democratic Republic of Congo visible to the west.

The southern circuit of Ishasha — particularly the fig tree lines along the Ntungwe River — is the primary search area for the tree-climbing lion prides. The Uganda Wildlife Authority monitors the prides daily, and your guide will have current intelligence on where the lions were last sighted and which fig trees they are favouring in the current season.

The best time to find lions in the trees is between approximately 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. — the hottest part of the day — when the prides climb to escape the ground-level heat and the dense swarms of tsetse flies that make the lower grassland uncomfortable. However, the tree-climbing lions of Ishasha exhibit this behaviour year-round as a culturally transmitted habit rather than a purely seasonal response to temperature, and sightings have been recorded in every month of the year. Early morning and late afternoon drives in Ishasha also offer compelling encounters with the prides on the ground — moving between territories, interacting socially, or watching the Uganda kob herds that form their primary prey.

Because Ishasha receives far fewer visitors than the Mweya and Kasenyi sectors of Queen Elizabeth National Park, the experience here has an exceptional quality of intimacy and solitude. When you find a tree-climbing lion pride — eight or nine animals distributed across the branches of a single enormous fig tree, some sleeping, some watching the world below with that characteristic combination of complete confidence and lazy magnificence — it is very often just your vehicle and the lions. No competing vehicles, no noise, no hurry. Just you and one of the rarest wildlife sights on earth.

The Ishasha sector’s location along the natural travel route between Queen Elizabeth National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest makes it a logical and convenient addition to any itinerary that includes gorilla trekking. Our 4 Days Exclusive Gorilla & Forest Retreat and 11 Days Uganda & Rwanda Cultural Safari both incorporate Queen Elizabeth National Park and can be designed with dedicated Ishasha time. Frena Adventures’ East Africa safari holidays provide further options for multi-park Uganda and Rwanda circuits that include Ishasha.

Leopards in Queen Elizabeth National Park

Leopards are the most elusive and consistently challenging of Africa’s big cats to see anywhere on the continent — and Queen Elizabeth National Park is no exception. They are present in the park in reasonable numbers, inhabiting the dense riverine vegetation along the Kazinga Channel’s banks, the woodland edges of the Kasenyi sector, and the more heavily forested terrain of the Ishasha and Maramagambo areas. But leopards are naturally secretive, predominantly nocturnal, and extraordinarily good at disappearing into cover that seems far too thin to conceal an animal of their size.

That said, Queen Elizabeth National Park offers several distinct opportunities for leopard sightings that experienced safari travelers rate highly. Game drives along the Kazinga Channel’s northern bank in the early morning occasionally yield leopard sightings in the dense vegetation at the water’s edge. The channel’s banks attract an enormous concentration of prey animals — buffalo, waterbuck, Uganda kob, warthog — and leopards are drawn to these prey concentrations in the same way that lions are. A patient early morning drive with an experienced guide who knows the likely locations is the most reliable approach during daylight hours.

The night game drive is by far the most productive time for leopard sightings anywhere in Queen Elizabeth National Park. As the park transforms after dark and nocturnal animals begin to move freely, leopards emerge from their daytime resting places and begin to hunt. Using powerful spotlights, night game drives pick out the distinctive amber eyeshine of leopards in the darkness long before the animal itself is visible, and the experience of watching a leopard move through the spotlight in the night — its rosette-patterned coat catching the light as it pauses to survey its territory — is among the most electric wildlife moments available anywhere in Uganda.

Leopards are also sighted with some regularity during the Ishasha sector game drives, particularly in the woodland and riverine areas near the Ntungwe River. The combination of lower visitor numbers and dense cover makes Ishasha good leopard territory, and guests who spend multiple days in this southern sector frequently report excellent sightings.

Our 15 Days Grand East Africa Safari builds in sufficient time across Uganda’s safari parks to give travellers the best cumulative chances of leopard sightings alongside lions, gorillas, chimpanzees, and all of Uganda’s other wildlife highlights. Frena Adventures’ Rwanda safari holidays and Uganda itineraries can be combined into cross-border circuits that include multiple days in Queen Elizabeth for the most complete big cat viewing experience.

Night Drives in Queen Elizabeth — The After-Dark Safari

One of the most underrated and exciting activities at Queen Elizabeth National Park is the guided night game drive — typically departing from your lodge at around 7:00 p.m. and running for two hours through the park’s southern sector with powerful spotlights.

Night drives transform the entire wildlife experience at Queen Elizabeth. The park’s diverse nocturnal community emerges after dark in ways that the most diligent daytime game driver will never witness: leopards moving through the grassland with their characteristic fluid, low-slung stride; civets and African genets hunting along the woodland edges; bush babies with their enormous reflective eyes peering down from the branches; porcupines shuffling methodically through the undergrowth; spotted hyenas patrolling their territories with that distinctive loping gait; and occasionally — most thrillingly — a leopard frozen in the spotlight with fresh prey, or lions moving with intent across the open plain.

For travelers whose primary goal is a leopard sighting, adding at least one night drive to their Queen Elizabeth itinerary is not optional — it is the single most effective strategy for improving their chances of this most elusive of Uganda’s big cats. Combined with early morning game drives in the Kasenyi sector and a dedicated Ishasha day for tree-climbing lions, a well-structured Queen Elizabeth itinerary of three to four days gives you excellent cumulative coverage of the park’s lion and leopard population.

Practical Tips for Seeing Lions and Leopards in Queen Elizabeth

The most important practical advice for maximising your big cat sightings at Queen Elizabeth National Park can be summarised in four principles.

Start early and stay out late. The golden hours of early morning and late afternoon are the most productive for lion and leopard activity, and getting your 4WD onto the Kasenyi Plains by 6:00 a.m. as the sun rises over the savannah gives you the best possible conditions for both species. The middle of the day is the quietest period for predator activity on the ground — but also, paradoxically, the best time to find the Ishasha lions in their trees.

Add a night drive. As described above, this is the most effective single action for improving leopard sighting chances, and it also offers lion encounters of a completely different quality from the daytime game drive.

Spend enough time. A single day in Queen Elizabeth National Park will give you some wildlife experiences — particularly on the Kazinga Channel boat cruise, which is virtually guaranteed to be spectacular regardless of season — but it will give you only limited opportunities for lion and leopard sightings. A minimum of three nights across the Mweya and Ishasha sectors is what we recommend for travelers who specifically want big cat encounters.

Book the lion tracking experience. If seeing lions is your primary goal, the Uganda Carnivore Program’s lion tracking activity — with its radio telemetry equipment and researcher guides — is the most reliable way to find lions on the Kasenyi Plains, and it transforms the encounter from a passive viewing opportunity into an actively educational and conservation-supporting experience.

The best time to visit for lion and leopard viewing is during the dry seasons — June to September and December to February — when shorter vegetation, predictable prey movements, and animals congregating around water sources all combine to make predator sightings more consistent. The wet seasons offer lush scenery and excellent birding but make spotting lions and leopards in longer vegetation more challenging, though the reduced visitor numbers during these periods give every sighting a quality of privacy that compensates considerably.

Our 3 Days Bwindi Gorilla Trekking Safari shows the kind of focused, expertly planned approach we bring to every Uganda itinerary, and our full range of safari packages covers every combination of Queen Elizabeth’s activities — from a standalone three-day Queen Elizabeth safari to comprehensive Uganda circuits that combine big cat viewing with gorilla trekking, chimpanzee tracking, and Rwanda. Contact our team to start planning your Queen Elizabeth safari today — the lions are in the trees, the leopards are in the riverine forest, and both are waiting to be found.