Uganda Gorilla Habituation Experiences, Primates habituation, Experiential Wildlife Research Tours
Uganda Safari packages for Uganda gorilla habituation experience tours, full-day Kibale chimps habituation, golden monkey habituation experience in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, experiential lion tracking in Queen Elizabeth National Park, rhino tracking in Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Our privately arranged mountain gorilla habituation tours offer a more exclusive gorilla trekking experience with only 4 persons having 4 hours with the mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
These tours can start from Entebbe in Uganda as well as Kigali. The tours require a good level of moderate fitness you interface with the gorillas, your frustrations all disappear. Gorilla habituation permits cost USD1500, the same amount for the Rwanda standard gorilla permit but you have more hours with the gorillas for photographing and the general experience. The packages are more experiential than our other trips and we have tried to have more informed guides especially arranged for these trips. On the golden monkey habituation tour, you have 4 hours, on the lion tracking experience you shall be accompanied by the research team and for the chimp's habituation experience, you have a full day with the chimps. We plan the transportation to Bwindi, accommodation for the safari, permit for gorilla habituation trek, guides on your gorilla trek. We arrange flights from Entebbe to Bwindi for the gorilla trek and gorilla flights as well.
Mountain gorilla are trained for tourism with humans through a process known as gorilla habituation. This process is conducted by the Uganda Wildlife Authority and could go on for at least 2 years. After the habituation, mock tourism (a kind of trial tourism) is conducted on the gorilla group, allowing a limited number per day for about a year. After this the gorillas are opened for real tourism.
In Bwindi, the gorilla habituation experience is done with Bikingi gorilla group. The group is moderately challenging to trek although all elderly people trek it with mild difficulty. Needless to say, physically challenged people will find it difficult to reach the gorilla group. It will take about 3-4 hours to reach these gorillas. Once you reach them, you are allowed to witness the counting of the nests, dung heaps, and how many gorillas are in the group, you participate in the researcher note-taking just as you continue going about your usual tourist experience.
Lion Tracking.
Lions are a must-see in Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda and yet their reclusive nature sometimes makes it a frustrating experience for visitors. Lion tracking research is one of those out-of-the-ordinary authentic wildlife experiences in Uganda.
Lion tracking Research only possible within Queen Elizabeth National Park under the Uganda Carnivore Project. While on this activity, you will join the researchers in the field as they track the lions in their natural habitats. The lead lions for the experiential lion tracking have a collar on them which can easily be tracked to locate the pride anytime.
The collars have batteries and are electronically configured to certain frequencies with which the park rangers use the GPS system to track the lions. Every morning the lion research team will try to find out where they are.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is an area of low prey density and lions can range within 40 sq km and where the animals of prey are even fewer; the lions can expand their territorial range as big as 400 sq km. By using radio tracking devices, the research team follows these lions every day.
Golden Monkey Habituation Experience in Mgahinga
Uganda Wildlife Authority now offers you the golden opportunity to experience a Golden Monkey Habituation in Mgahinga National Park. Accompany the researches in the morning or afternoon to track the Golden Monkeys and stay with them for 4 hours. You will have the unique chance to get close to these little primates and study their behavior in their natural habitat.
It is estimated that Mgahinga Gorilla National Park has between 3000-4000 golden monkeys grouped in troupes of 30s led by a principal adult male. Golden monkeys are primarily to be found in the bamboo forest that skirt the lower slopes of the volcanoes. They are quite more active in the bamboo canopy. Golden monkeys are opportunistic feeders. What they feed on could be by the availability of fruits, leaves of bamboo trees, shoots of bamboo, shrubs, flowers, invertebrates and these makes it to be restricted to highland forest, mostly the bamboo forest.
Golden monkey habituation starts at Mgahinga Gorilla National Park headquarters at 7:30 am for pre-tracking briefing (on the dos and don’ts of tracking the golden monkeys). The actual trek begins at 8:00 am. Hiking through the forests to sight the golden monkeys is not so strenuous like gorilla trekking because golden monkeys live in lower areas, so tourists do not track for more than 3 hours. When tourists encounter the golden monkey family, they are given 4 hours to spend with them (to take photographs and observe their behavior). With this activity, there is no minimum number of tourists who track each group but age limit is 12 years.
Kibale Chimpanzee Habituation Experience – CHEX – Kibale Forest
The Kibale Chimpanzee Habituation Experience (CHEX) enables visitors to accompany researchers and the chimps habituation team into the forest. The chimpanzee groups involved are less accustomed to human presence than those visited on the primate walk and following and viewing them is both exciting and challenging.
Chimps Habituation Experience (CHEX) is available on a full or half-day basis starting. Early visitors can watch chimps leaving their overnight nests between 6:00 - 6:30am before feeding, copulating, hunting, breastfeeding, resting, patrolling and displaying until it is time to build new nests around 7pm.
In Uganda where everything is abbreviated this is called CHEX – whatever you may call it – it is being with a group of Chimpanzees that are being habituated all-day long and you will learn more about their behaviors and ways than you would on a standard Chimpanzee Trek in Kibale Forest. Like the Gorilla and the Golden Monkey Habituation Experience, this is a learning experience where you learn from the Researchers and the Chimpanzees as you observe them.
It is the Chimp Habituation Experience – all day with chimpanzees in their natural setting. The Chimpanzee Habituation experience is limited to the number of visitors that can take part, and one has to plan early to get a spot on the day and date that you would like. This is not like Kibale chimpanzee tracking where you are with a larger group, and this is spending time with a team of trackers and researchers.
The Kibale Chimpanzee Habituation Experience requires that one books a spot through us as early as possible to secure your time with the Chimpanzees. There has been an increase of visitors to Uganda wanting to do this one-of-a-kind activity.
The price for a chimps habituation permit is currently USD250 per person.