Nyika National Park

Wildlife & Animals

Expert

By Ariadne van Zandbergen

Ariadne and her husband form a team who author the Bradt guide to Malawi.

There is a good variety of wildlife on Nyika Plateau, but a lot of the big safari animals, including lion, are missing. Buffalo and elephant are present on the lower slopes in the forest areas of the park, but this is not accessible to tourists. Due to poaching, wildlife numbers are generally low outside of the area around the lodge.

ElephantOccasional

GiraffeNone

HippoNone

BuffaloRare

ZebraCommon

WildebeestNone

White RhinoNone

Black RhinoNone

LionNone

LeopardOccasional

CheetahNone

HyenaOccasional

Wild DogNone

Wildlife Highlights

Nyika has the highest density of leopards in Malawi. Although shy, they can often be spotted on night drives. Some seem to have taken residence in the forest behind the lodge, and can sometimes be seen drinking at the Chelinda dam. Crawshay's zebra, a localized sub-species of Burchell’s zebra, is common around Chelinda as are eland, roan antelope, common reedbuck, bushbuck and duiker.

Best Time for Wildlife Viewing

Wildlife viewing is good throughout the year in Nyika. November to May are the best months to come here as this is the warmest time of the year. June to August tends to be very cold (which makes the otherwise popular night drives challenging), and some animals tend to move to lower altitudes at that time.