The park, at the time known as "Saa Nane Island Game Sanctuary", was accidentally bombed during the
air campaign of the Uganda–Tanzania War of 1978–1979. On 29 March 1979,
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered one of his
Tupolev Tu-22 bombers to attack
Mwanza, hoping to thereby intimidate the Tanzanian government into calling off its invasion of
Uganda. The Tu-22 completely missed the city, however, and its five anti-personnel rockets instead hit the game sanctuary, slightly injuring one worker and killing several animals. According to journalists
Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey, six
antelopes as well as many birds were killed. In contrast, intelligence analyst
Kenneth M. Pollack stated that "a large number of antelope" was killed. == Fauna ==