{"id":22212,"date":"2017-09-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intrepidtravel.com\/adventures?p=22212&preview=true&preview_id=22212"},"modified":"2025-03-17T20:35:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T09:35:27","slug":"leopards-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intrepidtravel.com\/adventures\/leopards-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Where to spot leopards in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lions are\u00a0everywhere in Sri Lanka<\/a>. Not in a\u00a0live, animated kind of way, since\u00a0the King of the Jungle didn’t make it past prehistoric times\u00a0on the island nation,\u00a0but\u00a0decorating the\u00a0national\u00a0flag, giving their name to\u00a0the country’s beloved cricket team, and emblazoned proudly across the packaging of countless products.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the Sri Lankan lion\u00a0isn’t much more\u00a0than a majestic myth adopted by the country’s ancient kings, another magnificent big cat prowls the island physically today \u2013 the leopard.<\/p>\n

Hunted by poachers on the one hand and seeing their natural habitats encroached by human settlements on the other, the leopard population in Sri Lanka has dwindled over the past few decades. In 2008, with just an estimated 700-950 individuals left in the wild, the Sri Lankan leopard entered the dreaded International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2019s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, alongside many of the world\u2019s most impressive apex predators.<\/p>\n

When we\u00a0decided to go to Sri Lanka as a family last year,\u00a0it was a\u00a0pretty important trip\u00a0for us. I was born and have lived most of my adult life in London but my mother\u2019s family is\u00a0from Sri Lanka. She hadn’t been back for nearly\u00a030 years and I had yet to\u00a0set foot on my maternal homeland.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: HOW TO EAT LIKE A LOCAL IN SRI LANKA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

As excited as I was to see\u00a0the country of my roots, I spent most of the plane journey daydreaming, unrealistically I knew,\u00a0of\u00a0spotting a leopard in the wild. Sri Lanka<\/a> has 26 national parks to explore and we were venturing into a few of them on safari. I crossed my fingers that I\u2019d catch sight of that dapper, patterned feline in one.<\/p>\n

Yala National Park<\/h2>\n
\"An

Photo by Rachel Fortner via Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

Our first stop is Yala, the most famous national park in Sri Lanka. Its fame is largely thanks to the fact that Yala has the most densely populated leopard presence on earth. Around 40 leopards are believed to roam the area, but sightings of these elusive creatures are still very rare.<\/p>\n

Covering around 950 square kilometres and\u00a0forming a large chunk of the south-east coast by Tissamaharama, the\u00a0park hosts the widest selection of wildlife to be found on the island and we were reassured\u00a0that our\u00a0chances of seeing the other\u00a0residents (elephants,\u00a0deer,\u00a0crocodiles, jackals, monkeys, mongooses, water and land monitor lizards, buffalo, wild boar, sloth bears, and\u00a0220 or so different species of birds) were much higher, which turned out to be the case.<\/p>\n

In the afternoon session of the first day of safari, our driver picked up some commotion on his radio and instantly spun the jeep around and sped off. We came into a large open plain full of other vehicles and a camera crew filming something in the distance amongst the trees, apparently a leopard. Despite a lot of agitated use of binoculars and hanging around for over half an hour, to our disappointment we didn\u2019t spot anything.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: 5 REASONS TO VISIT SRI LANKA NOW<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On the second morning, we finally came into luck. We\u2019d only been in the park for about half an hour when the driver slammed on the brakes and killed the engine, pointing franticly towards a clearing. There it was \u2013 a leopard in all its glory, casting a lazy glance in our direction before strolling off through the brush parallel to the road. It all happened very quickly, I could only have spotted him for about ten seconds, but time seemed to stand still. It was an exhilarating experience that myself and my mother will remember forever. My poor father on\u00a0the other hand, totally missed out because of where he was sitting, with branches blocking his view.<\/p>\n

Wilpattu National Park<\/h2>\n

Wilpattu, Sri Lanka\u2019s biggest national park, is located in the north-west lowlands and was once the most famous place for seeing leopards in the country. The area suffered badly during the civil war, and only re-opened in 2003 after being closed for 15 years. Leopard sightings have been more common recently and it\u2019s slightly less busy than Yala. The same wildlife roam Wilpattu as at Yala and the animals are slightly less cautious of humans.<\/p>\n

Udawalawe National Park<\/h2>\n
\"A

Photo by Stew Miles C\/O Intrepid Travel<\/p><\/div>\n

Udawalawe is the place to go for elephants. While you\u2019ll see them in most parks, Udawalawe has a population of around 500. It\u2019s located about four hours away from Colombo by car, and at 300 square kilometres in size, it\u2019s much smaller than Yala. There\u2019s very little forest cover to obscure the view, as many of the trees in the centre of the park died after a season of severe monsoon flooding.<\/p>\n

Along with elephants, you\u2019ll see monkeys, deer, crocodiles, flying squirrels, buffalo, and \u2013 for those with particularly good eye-sight \u2013 chameleons (our eagle-eyed driver somehow managed to spot a medium-sized one on a branch from about 25 feet away. It blew my mind as I struggled to see it from about five feet away). Sloth bear and leopard sightings aren\u2019t unheard of, but are pretty rare here. The park also contains around 180 different types of birds and if you\u2019re a keen bird-watcher, November and December are the best months to visit.<\/p>\n

Also worth a mention for lovers of these (generally) gentle giants are Minneriya and Kandulla national parks, which are famous for the \u2018Gathering\u2019 \u2013 the seasonal congregation of elephants in September and October. Up to 300 elephants will meet by Minneriya Lake on the lush grassland that forms as the lake dries out. There isn\u2019t a sight like it in the world.<\/p>\n

If you go to Sri Lanka expecting to see a leopard, you’ll most likely come away\u00a0disappointed. But never fear, you’ll be more than satisfied for wildlife.<\/p>\n

Have your own wildlife-filled safari on an Intrepid adventure in Sri Lanka<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Feature image C\/O Shutterstock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the lion\u00a0isn’t much more\u00a0than a majestic myth, another magnificent big cat prowls Sri Lanka \u2013 the leopard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15984,"featured_media":22217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[455],"tags":[298,52,292],"class_list":["post-22212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-elephants","tag-sri-lanka","tag-wildlife","ipf_theme-wildlife","ipf_region-sri-lanka"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhere to spot leopards in Sri Lanka | Intrepid Travel Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While the lion\u00a0isn't much more\u00a0than a majestic myth, another magnificent big cat prowls Sri Lanka \u2013 the leopard. 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