Visit Matobo Where to stay

The field guide

Wildlife in Matobo National Park

Matobo is not a big-game park and does not pretend to be one. Its animals are the ones the granite suits: two species of hyrax on the rock faces, the black eagles that hunt them, a leopard population that lives largely on hyrax, and a fenced western section restocked with plains game.

If you only want the answer

Come for the raptors and the rock specialists rather than a big-five list. Matobo holds one of the densest black eagle populations known, studied every year since the early 1960s, around 340 bird species and a leopard population fed largely on hyrax, though leopards are secretive and sightings are never guaranteed. Giraffe, zebra, sable and hippo live in the fenced game section in the west. There are no resident lions and no resident elephants.

What lives here, and what your odds are

Read the colours as odds for an ordinary two or three day visit. The plains game sits in the fenced western section, which you need to drive into on purpose; the hyrax and the raptors live throughout the granite. Camera traps run by the Dambari Wildlife Trust had recorded 55 wild mammal species across the hills by 2021, many of them nocturnal and seldom seen.

  • Rock hyrax (dassie) Very likely On the kopjes
  • Yellow-spotted hyrax Very likely Shares the same rocks
  • Impala Very likely Game section
  • Zebra Very likely Game section
  • Giraffe Very likely Game section
  • Sable antelope Good chance Listed by ZimParks
  • Wildebeest Good chance Game section
  • Hippo Good chance Game section only
  • Spotted hyaena Takes luck
  • Leopard Takes luck Plenty of sign, few sightings
  • Brown hyaena Takes luck Camera traps, even by day
  • Honey badger Takes luck
  • Elephant Takes luck Transients only
  • Lion Not here No resident lions
  • Wild dog Not here One dispersing pack, 2012

Hyrax odds reflect the 1990s counts; the long-running dassie survey stopped in 2019, so current numbers are not published.

Black eagles: the best-studied animal in the park

Verreaux's eagle, the black eagle, is Matobo's signature animal. In 1959 and 1960 a ranger recorded 37 eyries; a formal survey began in 1963, and the Matobo Black Eagle Survey has run every year since. 2023 was its sixtieth consecutive year, which the Matobo Conservation Society describes as the longest-running eagle study in the world. Today it covers a study area of about 1,220 km² and more than a hundred nest sites, monitored by BirdLife Zimbabwe members under a ZimParks permit.

The pairs lay two eggs between April and July, incubate for about 44 days, and usually raise a single chick, which fledges after about twelve weeks. Hyrax make up 98 percent of their diet, according to a 2007 study in the journal Ostrich, and a 31-year dataset showed the number of resident pairs rising in wet years, when hyrax were plentiful, and falling in droughts.

How many pairs there are depends on who is counting, over which area and in which decade: figures of 45, about 60 and 75 pairs all circulate. What every source agrees on is dozens of breeding pairs at one of the highest densities known anywhere.

Leopard: a real population, an overstated headline

ZimParks' own page calls Matobo home to the world's densest leopard population. We could not find a published density estimate that supports that, and the Dambari Wildlife Trust, which runs camera traps across the hills, has said it is unlikely that densities here are the highest on Earth. What Dambari does describe is a relatively high density fed mainly by hyrax, with leopards photographed carrying hyrax prey on several occasions.

So the honest version is this: Matobo is one of the better places in Africa to find leopard sign, and its leopards live largely on hyrax. They are secretive in this broken country, and a sighting is never guaranteed.

Hyrax: the animals everything else depends on

Two species share the kopjes: the rock hyrax and the yellow-spotted or bush hyrax. Counts between 1992 and 1996 put them at roughly 31,000 to 40,000 rock hyrax and 22,000 to 47,000 yellow-spotted hyrax inside the park, after what researchers called a considerable decline since 1978, with drought the suspected cause. Both give birth in a short window in March and April.

Hyrax are also hunted for food around the park, which has caused local declines in hyrax and, in turn, in eagles. School conservation programmes have run in around 21 schools around the hills since 1995.

The game section in the west

The fenced Whovi section, about 105 km², was restocked with translocated animals. ZimParks lists impala, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, hippo, hyena, ostrich and sable there, and hippo occur only in this section. A high-clearance 4x4 is recommended. One operator reports a 20 percent sable sighting rate from its own guests, which we pass on as their figure rather than ours.

Night animals and rarities

Dambari's camera traps have caught brown hyaena, including a cub in daylight, aardvark, civet, porcupine and honey badger, with aardwolf recorded outside the park. Elephants are transient, passing through the hills on old routes rather than living here. A single dispersing group of wild dogs was recorded in 2012; they are not a Matobo species for visitors. Lions are absent, according to operators who guide here. Cheetah feature in Dambari's research across the wider hills, but their presence in the park itself is not established.

Birds: around 340 species

BirdLife Zimbabwe puts the Matopos list at about 340 species. Higher figures of around 400 circulate, but they refer to a wider area; we use the lower number. The hills are Important Bird Area Z018, and BirdLife counts at least 50 raptor species, 32 of them breeding, at a density of 76 raptor pairs per 10,000 hectares, as well as 35 of Zimbabwe's 43 specially protected birds.

Summer brings the migrants: yellow-billed and black kites, Wahlberg's eagle and steppe eagle. Cape vultures pass overhead, and in wet years corncrakes turn up in the long grass. Martial eagle, African hawk-eagle and augur buzzard complete the resident raptor list.

±340 bird species recorded
  1. Verreaux's (black) eagle Dozens of breeding pairs on the granite, and the subject of the world's longest-running eagle survey
  2. African crowned eagle One of the resident raptors BirdLife Zimbabwe names as a key species of the hills
  3. Black stork BirdLife Zimbabwe counts 20 to 25 breeding pairs in the hills
  4. Mocking cliff-chat A rock-loving chat on BirdLife Zimbabwe's list of key Matobo species
  5. Boulder chat Named by BirdLife Zimbabwe among the key birds of the Matobo granite

Trees and plants

More than 200 tree species grow in the park, among them mountain acacia, wild pear and paperbark acacia, with many aloes on the rock and more than 100 species of grass. BirdLife Zimbabwe names three plants found nowhere else: a shrub, a herb and a honeysuckle tree.

Sources

Where to go next

Best Time To Visit Which months put these animals in front of you Things To Do Drives, walks and boats, and what each one shows you Map Where the game circuits actually run