Qualla: Central Island

Central Island: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Umbra Lab, Inc., CC BY 4.0. The crocodiles got there first, and they named the place. Local Turkana call this volcanic island Chooro, Crocodile Island, and the title is earned: the lakes cupped in its craters hold the largest concentration of Nile crocodiles on Earth. Central Island rises from the middle of Lake Turkana, a jade-green inland sea stranded in the deserts of northern Kenya. Three kilometers across and built from more than a dozen craters and cones, it is not some ancient relic. The volcano still breathes, venting sulfur and steam, while reptiles older than the surrounding mountains breed on the shores of its hidden lakes.

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Image: Umbra Lab, Inc. | CC BY 4.0

Central Island: An Island Still Cooking

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0. Central Island is no extinct curiosity. Its youngest lavas and ash may date to the Holocene, geologically yesterday, and the volcano remains restless. Fumaroles vent along the rim of the central crater, and visitors in the 1930s watched sprays of yellow sulfur jet from the ground...

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Image: Hansueli Krapf | CC BY-SA 3.0

Central Island: Three Lakes Within a Lake

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Phil H., CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The island's strangest feature is water held inside water. Three of its craters have filled to become lakes in their own right, each given a name for what lives or gathers there. Crocodile Lake and Flamingo Lake fill the two largest craters, basins nearly a kilometer wide and rou...

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Image: Phil H. | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Central Island: The Crocodile Nursery

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0. Each April and May, the shores of those crater lakes become one of Africa's great reptilian spectacles. Female crocodiles haul out and bury their eggs deep in the warm sand, beyond the reach of monitor lizards and raptors that would dig them up. When the time comes, the hatchling...

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Image: Hansueli Krapf | CC BY-SA 3.0

Central Island: A Crossroads for Migrating Wings

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0. Crocodiles are only the loudest residents. The island and its lakes draw an extraordinary density of birds, with dozens of water-bird species recorded on and around it. Lesser flamingos wade the shallows of the volcanic lakes, tinting the water pink at the edges. Goliath herons a...

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Image: Hansueli Krapf | CC BY-SA 3.0

Central Island: Protected and Almost Untouched

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today the whole island is Central Island National Park, managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service and part of the Lake Turkana National Parks World Heritage Site. There are no towns, no roads, no permanent inhabitants, only the volcano, the crocodiles, the birds, and the wind off the...

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Image: Hansueli Krapf | CC BY-SA 3.0