Leopard safari Sri Lanka: Big cats and Blue Whales in the same trip
Published on: July 15, 2021 | Last Updated: April 30, 2025
Seeing Wild Leopards and the largest whale on the planet is on many peoples wish lists, so imagine being able to do both in a tropical paradise like Sri Lanka. Even better is the fact that the two locations are just a few hours apart and you can combine your Yala Leopard safari with a blue whale watching trip out of beautiful Mirissa as part of our signature Leopard and Whales Sri Lanka wildlife holiday
We first visited Sri Lanka way back in 2002; as for the first time we looked beyond the wildlife delights of India and opened our eyes to this beautiful ‘teardrop’ of an island located of the SE coast of its massive neighbour. Could Sri Lanka live up to the colour, history and amazing wildlife we had witnessed in India since 1997? One of the biggest wildlife stories in Sri Lanka centred around the sheer size and dominance of some of the male leopards; especially those found in the world famous Yala National Park, where wildlife enthusiasts and photographers came to enjoy a spectacular Leopard Safari as part of their Sri Lanka Wildlife Holiday. However Leopards are not just found in Yala and I was lucky enough to see my first leopard lying on a rock in Udawalawe National Park within 30 minutes of starting our morning jeep safari.
Uda Walawe is more famous for its large resident Elephant population, but we were rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of this shy female leopard enjoying the first rays of morning sunshine. Leopards often seek out the higher rocks in the morning so the first warming touches of the son shine on their bodies after a cold night hunting.
Yala or Wilpattu national park best for leopards in Sri Lanka?
Both these national parks have healthy leopard populations but to understand your chances of seeing them it’s important to look at the habitat and landscapes you will find in both of these wildlife sanctuaries. Although Wilpattu is the largest of Sri Lanka’s national parks only parts of the sanctuary allow vehicle access to tourists and in places the forest is very thick. This not only means that spotting a wild leopard is more challenging here, but even if you see one photography can be a challenge and clear views and photographs only happen when the leopard is crossing the road and of course that is always a question of luck.
A Yala national park leopard safari tends to be more popular than Wilpattu and one of the reasons for this is the more open habitat here compared to Wilpatttu. Depending on how ‘bold’ the leopard is this can lead to some amazing encounters with the leopards walking through the open landscape as it patrols its terriotory, or if you are incredibly lucky you might even witness the end of a hunt.
Why not have the best of both worlds and include both parks in your leopard safari to Sri Lanka and enjoy both the scenic beauty as well as multiple sightings of these big cats. We have also enjoyed good success with sloth bears during the fruiting season, as well as after heavy rains when it is easier for these amazing bears to dig the ground and feed on termite nests.
Yala leopard safari: What makes it so special and how do we protect it?
Firstly, there are some amazing Yala wildlife lodges to stay in all around this huge national park, which will really enhance you overall stay, due to their proximity to the park entrance and their high level of comfort and service. Some of them like Cinnamon Wild have a resort style feel, so inbetween the exhilerating morning and afternoon safaris, you can relax by the pool and enjoy a cold drink. Others have risen from the ashes after the terrible destruction brought by the Asian Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004; after many tears and many years the old Yala Safari Game Lodge was rechristened as Jetwing Yala and is now a highly respected lodge in the Tissa side of the park
On my very first safari into Yala on February 2002, I was struck by the sheer beauty of the park. The incredible mixture of thick green forest, shallow freshwater lakes, curvaceous, sculpted rocks and tantalising glimpses of the Indian Ocean; created a game drive like no other I had ever been on. Add to that herds of charismatic Elephants (no shyness there!), Sloth Bears with their heads down looking for food (especially April onwards when you have the fruiting trees) and a great variety of resident and migratory birds; makes it very hard to leave this wildlife Paradise. However it is the Leopards which bring most of the visitors to Yala – marvelling at the power and presence of the larger Male Leopards who dominate key territories inside the park. In contrast to India where Leopards skulk on the fringes of National Parks like Ranthambhore and Bandhavgarh, in Yala, the absence of tigers allows the Leopards to take centre stage and create the best location in the whole of Asia to photograph Leopards.
During my Leopard safari in Sri Lanka I was lucky enough to meet the husband and wife team of Andrew Kittle and Anjali Watson who had been studying, with the financial support of Jetwing and others, about the Leopards of Yala for an entire year. For them, not the modern day scientific obssesion of ‘knocking out’ big cats and putting a huge radio collar on their heads. They instead relied much more on field craft and long days in the park observing the behaviour of many different individual leopards. This constant monitoring along with scat analysis, allowed them to build up a detailed picture of the Leopard’s daily lives in Yala. They continue their good work to this day and I would encourage anyone looking to help Leopard Conservation in Sri Lanka to contact them and see if you can help sponsor their work at the ‘Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation Trust’, Sri Lanka.
This knowledge has helped us to understand key factors which help is manage the park better, including prey density, terriotory size of male and female leopards and how new males coming into the core areas affect females and their cubs. All national parks are very dynamic by their very nature but with constant quality scientific research we can react to threats, like poaching and disease, and take quick and decisive action to protect the wild leopard population.
A leopard safari at Yala national park: Timing is everything!
Even back in 2002 it was noticable how much busier Yala was compared to Udawalawe, especially on weekends, when many of the countries middle and upper classes drive across in their own vehicles to enter the park. This has become even easier and faster in recent years due to the construction of a new highway which links Colombo with the south east of the country. Some of these visitors will drive their own vehicle inside the national park but must have a park guide inside the car. We don’t like to see this policy as it needs experience to travel on these roads and most importantly the welfare of the leopards and other wildlife can be affected by over aggressive driving or getting too close to the animal.
At Wildlife Trails we will either book a private specialist 4X4 vehicle with expert naturalist for the four days you will be inside the park or choose a camp with their own vehicles and expert guides. By starting the Yala leopard safari on either a Monday or Tuesday we can avoid you being inside the park when it is very crowded. We can only do our best to avoid both weekends and festival periods as there is no limit on the number of vehicles permitted inside on any given day so the Tissa gate side of Yala in particular is always busy.
Another tactic of ours involves taking our own tasty lunches into the park so we do not waste 30 minutes each way safari time going to and from the Yala wildlife lodge for a set lunch. Not only does this give us more safari time inside the park it also allows us to have lunch in some stunning natural rest camps with beautiful views of the forest, sea or inland lakes. We do have to stay within the designated rest camps during the break for lunch but as soon as the park re-opens we are already in the core leopard areas and can enjoy some time looking for wildlife with far fewer vehicles.
How to use the best Yala wildlife lodges or hotels
We can think of Yala national park as having three main entrances/gates, Tissa in the west, Kataragama in the north and Kumana in the east. If you prefer resort style hotels with pools and plenty of facilities you should consider the Tissa side of the park even though that can be very busy with the number of vehicles.
We do have a relationship with a nice hotel on the Kataragama side and also work with a couple of highly respected wildlife camps, so if you would prefer less tourist traffic and don’t mind less facilities then we would highly recommend a Yala leopard safaris based here. Yala is divided into zones and because Zone 1 is so famous for leopards vehicles tend to focus mainly on this area and keep checking out the territories of known cats. By entering from the Kataragama side you can access both Zone 1 and Zone 2. Infact, you can also with a 30 minute drive head into Zone 5 which definitly does not get any visitors from the Tissa side and can also be lucky for leopard.
Finally, for you adventerous souls out there, why not combine some surfing with leopard safaris in Kumana . Arugam Bay is world famous for surfing in the far south east of the island and from there you can reach the Kumana gate in about 45 minutes to 1 hour from your hotels. However that transfer is too long for wildlife lovers so we would instead have you wild camping in Kumana itself and this is not only amazing for leopard action but also disconnected from the rest of the zones, so only those visitors from Arugam Bay or those staying at designated camp sites will be able to take a safari here.
Leopards and Blue Whales. The magic of a Sri Lanka safari!
I will discuss the many other locations I was lucky enough to visit during my 3 week trip to Sri Lanka in future blogs. However I do want to mention one more incredible wildlife experience which is easily included as an extension to your Leopard Safari at Yala – that is Blue Whale Watching from the southern tip of Sri Lanka.
One of the great initiatives which came after the terrible destruction witnessed at the end of 2004, was international NGO’s providing interest free loans or grants to coastal communities to purchase new boats – obviously many of them had been destroyed during the Tsunami. Some of these families used the money to go back to their regular fishing jobs, however a few with support from international doners, took another path which was to prove incredibly successful; an example of such an initiative was written about in the Sri Lankan Sunday Times. Friends of Wildlife Trails such as the pioneering Dr Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne had brought international attention to the whale watching opportunities present off the south coast of Sri Lanka by publishing an article in the BBC Wildlife Magazine back in 2008. Whale watching trips from Mirissa (only a few hours away from Yala by car) are now a regular component of our tours, with clients enjoying magnificent views of both Sperm and Blue Whales, as well as different species of Dolphins. I think we would all agree that a 7 to 10 day Sri Lanka safari which allows you to see Leopards and Blue Whales in the same tour is a very special trip indeed and one of the many reasons why you should include Sri Lanka high on the list of your next ‘must see’ wildlife locations. Check out our Sri Lanka Wildlife Holidays and Safaris here – all of them can be tailor-made to your own personal specifications.
