Mole National Park

Mole National Park protects an area of savannah and forest in northern Ghana. It’s home to elephants, leopards and rare birds such as the white-backed vulture. In the western part of the park, the Konkori Escarpment has panoramic views and overlooks waterholes where animals drink. There are waterfalls along the Kparia and Polzen rivers. To the south, Larabanga village has a centuries-old, Sudanese-style mosque.

Address: Ghana

Area: 1,869 mi²

Established: 1958

Fauna

The park is home to over 93 mammal species, and the large mammals of the park include an elephant population, hippos, buffalo, and warthogs. The park is considered a primary African preserve for antelope species including kob, defassa waterbuck, roan, hartebeest, oribi, the bushbuck, and two duikers, the red duiker and yellow-backed duiker. Olive baboons, black-and-white colobus monkeys, the green vervet, and patas monkeys are the known species of monkeys resident in the park.  Of the 33 known species of reptiles slender-snouted and dwarf crocodile are found in the park. Sightings of hyenas, lions and leopards are unusual, but these carnivoreswere once more common in the park. Among the 344 listed bird species are the martial eagle, the white-headed and palm-nut vultures, saddle-billed storks, herons, egrets, the Abyssinian roller, the violet turaco, various shrikes and the red-throated bee-eater.

Mole National Park, like other Ghanaian game preserves, is poorly funded for prevention of poaching. Nevertheless, the fauna of the park is guarded by professional rangers, and the poachers are at real risk to be put under arrest. Poachers tend to live within 50 km of the boundaries of the park. This distance of 50 km is the reported greatest distance hunters were willing to travel with poached game.The remnant human population of the park was removed in 1961, leaving all game hunters outside the reserve, meaning that mammal populations on the edges of the park are impacted more by hunting than interior populations.