Mago National Park

Located on the eastern bank of the River Omo is Mago National Park, an extremely remote park within the dense acacia scrubs, rolling grassland and deserts of Ethiopia. The park covers an area of 2,162 sq km and offers one of the wildest and most magnificent wildlife sceneries in Ethiopia with an abundance of wildlife. Established in 1979, this is one of the newest of all the several Ethiopia National Parks.
Geographically, the highest point in the park is Mount Mago (rising up to 2528 meters) after which the park is named. The major environment within and surrounding the Park is dominantly grass savannah, with a few pockets of forested areas around the rivers. There are also several wetlands along the lower Mago and around Lake Dipa as well as scrub on the sides of the hills.
Wildlife
Aside from the massive concentrations of buffalo, giraffe and elephant for which the park was established to principally safeguard, Mago National Park is also home to over 56 other species of wildlife including lelwel hartebeest and topi. Others mammals are leopard, gerenuk, lion, cheetah, burchell’s zebra, Oryx and greater and lesser kudu.
Bird Life
The Park’s bird variety includes the quite uncommon Turdoides tenebrosus more prevalent around Lake Dipa. Others include bustards, weavers, hornbills and starlings. Kingfishers and herons are rather common around river Nile as the alternative habitat.
Safaris
Plausible to note is the Park has extremely dense bushes which make for difficult game viewing. On Ethiopia tours into Mago NP, most tourists can ably here birdcalls within the thick acacia scrubs and rolling grasslands but without further access. The park’s best known attractions however are the Mursi, notorious for piercing their lips and inserting disks made of clay.
How to Get There
All access routes to and from Mago National Park are unpaved which makes them impassable during the wet season. Similarly tourists on nature walks into the park area face accessibility challenges because of the terrain of this region.