Jan Amora - Simien Mountains, Amhara, Ethiopia

 

Simien Mountains National Park is one of the national parks of Ethiopia. Located Jan Amora and Debarq Semien Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, its territory covers the Simien Mountains and includes Ras Dashan, the highest point in Ethiopia. It is home to a number of endangered species, including the Ethiopian wolf and the walia ibex, a wild goat found nowhere else in the world. The gelada baboon and the caracal, a cat, also occur within the Simien Mountains

Although the word Semien means "north" in Amharic, according to Richard Pankhurst the ancestral form of the word actually meant "south" in Ge'ez, because the mountains lay to the south of Aksum, which was at the time the center of Ethiopian civilization. But as over the following centuries the center of Ethiopian civilization itself moved to the south, these mountains came to be thought of as lying to the north, and the meaning of the word likewise changed.

The Semiens are remarkable as being one of the few spots in Africa where snow regularly falls. First mentioned in the Monumentum Adulitanum of the 4th century AD (which described them as "inaccessible mountains covered with snow" and where soldiers walked up to their knees in snow), the presence of snow was undeniably witnessed by the 17th century Jesuit priest Jerónimo Lobo. Although the later traveler James Bruce claims that he had never witnessed snow in the Semien Mountains, the 19th century explorer Henry Salt not only recorded that he saw snow there (on 9 April 1814), but explained the reason for Bruce's failure to see snow in these mountains – Bruce had ventured no further than the foothills into the Semiens.

The Walia ibex is another animal that is native to Jan Amora. The ibex is from the goat family, and currently there are 1200 in Jan Amora. This endangered species is found in only semien Mountains Debark and Jan Amora. Jan Amora also is home to two of some of the most endangered animals the Simien jackal and the Ethiopian wolf. The population of these recently aniamls is increasing to about 10% every year


Jan Amora is also the place for Ethiopian monkey gelada with large populations in theSemien Mountains. The Gelada live with other large group Monkeys. These Gelada only found in Ethiopia not other else. These Gelada mainly eat grass but the Male gelada eat other animals' meat. When both blades and seeds are available, geladas prefer the seeds. They also eat flowers, rhizomes and roots when available. At night, they sleep on the ledges of cliffs. At sunrise, they leave the cliffs and travel to the tops of the plateaus to feed and socialize. When morning ends, social activities tend to wane and the geladas primarily focus on foraging. They will travel during this time, as well. When evening arrives, geladas exhibit more social activities before descending to the cliffs to sleep.Over 474,000 tourists visited Semien Mountains during the first nine months of the current Ethiopian fiscal year, from Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy and among others country. Ethiopia generates $252 million revenue from tourism in Semien Mountains in 2006 to 2011.
Source: triposo.com