Yangudi Rassa National Park is one of the National Parks of Ethiopia. Located in the Afar Region, its 4730 square kilometers of territory include Mount Yangudi near the southern border and the surrounding Rassa Plains, with altitudes from 400 to 1459 meters above sea level. Sandy semi-desert and wooded grassland cover the majority of the park's area. This Park lies between the territory of the Afars and the Issas, and while violence have been frequent between them, most of the park happens to be in an area where they avoid each other. As a result, most of the active protection of the Park is focussed on maanging their conflict.
This national park was proposed in 1977 in specific to protect the African Wild Ass, but the steps needed to officially establish this park have not been completed as of 2002. Recently, the Wild Ass went extinct in Yagundi Rassa. However, there is a small population in the adjacent Mile-Serdo Wild Ass Reserve (8,766 kmĀ²). The park headquarters are in Gewane. Large animals native to the park include Beisa Oryx, Soemmering's gazelle, gerenuk and Grevy's zebra. Bird species of interest include Phoenicopterus minor, Petronia brachydactyla and Ardeotis arabs. The Awash - Asseb highway crosses the Yangudi Rassa National Park, as does the Awash River.
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or park:
“Five oclock tea is a phrase our rude forefathers, even of the last generation, would scarcely have understood, so completely is it a thing of to-day; and yet, so rapid is the March of the Mind, it has already risen into a national institution, and rivals, in its universal application to all ranks and ages, and as a specific for all the ills that flesh is heir to, the glorious Magna Charta.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (18321898)
“Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the Park a-maying!”
—Unknown. Sister, Awake! (L. 912)