Travel Guide Parc National Du Balé

Located 400 km south-west of Addis Ababa, the Bale Mountains National Park covers an area of 2,470 km2, and is home to Ethiopia's second-highest peak, Mount Batu, which rises to 4,307 m. The park can be visited on foot or by car. Visitable on foot and by car, it's one of the best places to spot the endemic red fox, mountain nyala and Menelik's antelope. In addition to the profusion of birds, other animals include the Anubis baboon, the colobus macaque, the giant forest pig, the Abyssinian wolf, the caracal and the occasional leopard. The park's streams, which later became major rivers, offer some of the best fishing in Africa for both brown and rainbow trout.Biodiversity at risk. The Bale Massif is a fragile area, whose preservation is crucial not only in terms of biodiversity, but also of human development for the populations dependent on this particular environment. The Bale massif is a veritable rain catcher and the source of a multitude of springs, feeding the four major rivers (Wabe Shebelle, Web, Wemel and Dumal) which, far beyond the highlands, irrigate the arid regions of the east and south-west of the country. The livelihood of farmers, and also that of the large pastoral populations living in the peripheral lowlands, depends on the proper management of water resources. However, overgrazing, deforestation and water abstraction for irrigation of cultivated areas at the foot of the massif have harmful consequences on downstream water runoff. As a result, some rivers have become seasonal. To cope with this water shortage during the dry season, more and more herds are converging on the Bale mountains, attracted by the presence of numerous mineral-rich springs that feed the surrounding pastures. This practice has the effect of reducing wildlife habitat areas and, if resource exploitation were to continue under such conditions, it is to be feared that here, more than in any other area of comparable size in the world, many animal species would be condemned to extinction.