Uganda Wildlife Authority has introduced gorilla habituation experience in Rushaga region of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Tourists can now move with researchers to experience how mountain gorillas are habituated. Apparently this experience is still at a mock stage and can be booked by contacting the Warden in Rushaga. The price for mountain gorilla habituation experience is now at USD1500.00 and one can stay for up to four hours.

The Gorilla Habituation Experience can be booked in Uganda for 2016 – BOOK HERE

Trekking Mountain Gorillas is a lifetime dream for many travelers to Uganda and Rwanda. The Habituation Experience gives you an opportunity to spend 4hours with Mountain Gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

The experience

Introduced in 2015 and available for a very limited duration of only 2-3 years is the gorilla habituation experience in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. In order to become habituated to the presence of tourists, each gorilla group has undergone an extremely delicate process, lasting around five years, gradually getting accustomed to the presence of humans. Park rangers start off by spending a short period of time with the gorillas every day, at a certain distance that represents the limit of the gorillas’ comfort zone. As the years go by, they gradually increase the time and reduce the distance until they deem the gorillas ready for paying clients to visit them. The gorilla habituation experience for the first time allows paying clients to participate in this process. It is limited to two gorilla families in the southern part of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Bukingyi and Bushaho, in the Rushaga sector of the park. Due to the steep terrain, dense vegetation and high altitudes a high level of fitness is required.

Gorilla habituation is the process through which a gorilla family get used to human visits. When there was plans to introduce gorilla tourism in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, the remaining task was to make sure that the mountain gorillas get used to visits by tourists. Remember the gorillas were living in the forest and were not used to human visit.

A gorilla habituation process takes a period of 2-3 years and it involves an advance team from the Uganda Wildlife Authority making frequent visits to the gorilla family. Upon establishing that the group is used and welcoming to tourists, the gorilla family becomes ready for tourists’ visits.

History of Gorilla Habituation

Habituation of wild gorillas has long been a useful tool for research and conservation programs. Decisions to habituate gorillas typically reflect a balance of the benefits gained and the costs/risks. In general, the benefits include that it: generates revenue through tourism for governments, local communities, and businesses; enables detailed research on feeding ecology and social behaviour; provides daily protection for the groups monitored; enables gorilla health monitoring; pro­vides a mechanism for examining trends in population dynamics by monitoring births, death and dispersal patterns. In contrast, the costs of ha­bituation are that it: increases risk of disease through exposure to humans in close proximity; increases risk of poaching due to loss of fear of humans; requires financial resources and staff to monitor habituated gorillas as a lifelong commitment. Both the costs and benefits can be illustrated in all locations where gorillas have been habituated. For example, several habituated Grauer’s gorillas were killed during the political instability in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Re­public of the Congo (Yamagiwa 2003) and evidence of a virus transmitted from humans was found in Virunga mountain gorillas suffering from res­piratory disease (Palacios et al. 2011). The economic benefits derived from gorilla tourism can be large, but may come to a halt due to political instability, which is the current situation in Dzanga-Sangha National Park, Central African Republic.

Conservation and research efforts in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, which contains about half of the remaining mountain gorillas in the world, did not begin in earnest until the early 1990s following it being gazetted as a national park in 1991. This is in contrast to the mountain gorillas of the Virunga Massif, which have been the focus of intense efforts since the last 1960s. Over the past two decades Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has experienced many changes, notably an increase in the number of habituated groups from 3 to 12, which we describe here. Among the many conservation strategies that have been developed by Opens external link in new window Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), gorilla tourism was at the top of the list for generating funds for conservation activities and also creating alternative sources of income for local communities, a move intended to create a win-win situation for conservation and development. Overall, gorilla habituation in Bwindi can be viewed as occurring in three phases.

The first phase of habituation occurred in the early 1990s with the Katendegyere Group and Mubare Group, both ranging around Buhoma. Habituation of both groups started in 1991 and they were opened for tourism in 1993. The Katendegyere Group initially contained 11 gorillas, but by 1998 it had decreased to only 3 gorillas. At this time, the group crossed into the Sarambwe Game Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (contiguous with Bwindi) and the group could no longer be monitored by UWA. There are reports of mountain gorilla groups in this area, but the fate of the Katendegyere group is unknown. The Mubare Group initially contained 13 gorillas and had only 5 gorillas at one point. The silverback that led the group when first contacted, Ruhondeza, had an impressively long tenure of more than 20 years and died in 2012. The group has gone through a variety of changes in recent years and currently contains 10 members.

Concurrent to gorilla habituation for tourism, one group was habituated for research purposes. Habituation of the Kyagurilo Group began in the early 1990s in the Ruhija area of Bwindi, as part of research efforts of the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation. In 1995 this group suffered a poaching attack, resulting in the death of 4 group members. Intense research efforts on this group by the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology have been ongoing since 1998. The group size dipped as low as 10 members in 2010, but it currently contains 18 individuals. Since 2012 this group also has been used for tourism during times of peak demand.

The second phase of gorilla habituation occurred in the mid-1990s, following a growth in the tourism market. Since the Katendegyere Group had become so small, another group was habituated in the Buhoma area. The Habinyanja Group contained more than 25 gorillas in 1997 and it fissioned into two groups in 2002. The smaller group initially consisted of only 8 gorillas and was named the Rushegura Group.

Additionally, in an effort to spread the growing benefits of gorilla tourism and improve conservation efforts in other regions of the park, it was decided that gorilla tourism would be expanded outside Buhoma. As a result, habituation of the Nkuringo Group in the southern region of Bwindi began in 1997. However, due to various challenges including the need for infrastructure development, the group was only opened for tourism in 2004.

The third phase of gorilla habituation was the result of persistent growth in demand for gorilla tourism and the urge to introduce gorilla tourism elsewhere around the park as means of enhancing conservation and development. Gorilla tourism was earmarked as a major revenue earner and notable employer of numerous local people. Thus, initiatives to equitably distribute such opportunities around the entire protected area took centre stage and more gorilla groups were habituated in various sectors of the park.

The habituation of Bitukura Group (in the northeastern region around Ruhija) and Nshongi Group (in the southern sector of the park) began in 2006 and both groups were opened for tourism in 2008. Based on the results of the 2006 park-wide gorilla census, the Nshongi Group was the largest group in the park with more than 30 members. However, in 2014 it contains only 8 gorillas. The dramatic change in group size is largely the result of two fission events. First, in 2010 the silverback Mishaya moved out with 8 other group members. In 2012, the silverback Bweza separated from the group with 9 individuals. Both resulting groups go by the names of these silverbacks. Mishaya died suddenly in early 2014, and according to UWA a new silverback took over the group.

Habituation of two additional groups began in 2008 and both were opened for tourism in 2010. The Kahungye Group ranges in the southern sector of the park, near the Nshongi Group. It also was initially a very large group, containing nearly 30 gorillas. In March 2012, the group fissioned with 9 members splitting off to form the Busingye Group. The Oruzogo, ranging to the west of the Ruhija area initially contained about 20 gorillas, but has reduced in size slightly due to emigrations.

The group fissions, births, deaths, emigrations and immigrations observed in the habituated groups all reflect natural demographic processes that are typical for a species that lives in social groups. Gorillas are one of only a few primate genera in which both males and females may either remain in or disperse from the group in which they were born.

Males seek to attain the dominant silverback position of a group by either queuing for alpha status in the natal group or becoming solitary to attempt to attract females to form a new group. As a result, we see both one-male and multimale groups, with the latter sometimes fissioning into two groups. Understanding these demographic processes is largely possible by monitoring habituated groups. By regularly collecting data on the habituated gorillas we have also been able to determine that Bwindi gorillas had a lower birth rate and a longer interbirth interval than the Virunga gorillas (5 years compared to 4 years), which suggests that the overall growth rate of the population is likely lower in Bwindi (Robbins et al. 2009). Such information can be used concurrently with studies on gorilla health and ecological conditions to best understand this species’ biology and contribute to conservation management strategies.

The most recent park-wide census conducted in 2011 estimated that a minimum of 400 gorillas live in 36 social units in Bwindi. At that time, the 168 gorillas in the 10 habituated groups represented 42% of all the gorillas and 28% of all the groups in the park. In contrast, this value is much lower than the 349 habituated gorillas out of 480 detected (73% of the population; 24 of 36 social groups) found at the time of the 2010 census in the Virunga Massif (Gray et al. 2013). Most of the remaining unhabituated groups in Bwindi live in the interior of the park that is not accessible as a day trip and therefore would be unsuitable for tourism. The number of tourists viewing gorillas in Bwindi has increased from approximately 3000 per year in the 1990s to more than 15,000 in recent years.

Dian Fossey’s original focus was on the study of mountain gorillas. She pioneered gorilla habituation, identification, tracking, range mapping, and other primate research techniques in use today. However, she soon realized that if the gorillas were to survive, they would require protection as well. Among the threats were poachers who set snares in the forest, cattle grazing, and human encroachment into the forest. She initiated “active conservation” practices in the form of armed anti-poaching patrols. After one of her favorite gorillas — Digit — was killed by poachers, Fossey established the “Digit Fund,” to support active conservation of the gorillas. After her death, the Digit Fund was renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (Fossey Fund), which continues to operate Karisoke today.

• After living in tents for a year and a half, Fossey allowed some European friends from nearby towns to build a small one-room cabin for her. Over the next 10 years eight other cabins were constructed at Karisoke™.
• Mountain gorilla census work by Fossey and visiting scientists showed a population decline until the mid-1980s, when it began to increase.
• By early 1978, Fossey organized weekly anti-poaching patrols to protect the gorillas.
• Fossey invited Dr. Louis Leakey to send students to assist her in 1969, initiating Karisoke’s long history of providing students from all over the world with field experience and research opportunities.
• Fossey and students made important discoveries about gorilla ecology, behavior and more.
• In 1968, National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell came to Karisoke™ while Fossey visited the United States. He returned in 1969 to cover her work. For a period of nearly three years, he also helped her monitor the gorillas, train staff assistants and build and maintain the facilities. During this time, he shot thousands of photographs and several miles of film.
• Poachers killed the silverback Digit, removing his head and hands, on Dec. 31, 1977. Walter Cronkite announced the death on the “CBS Evening News.”
• Fossey published Gorillas in the Mist in 1983. It became an international best seller.
• A film based on Fossey’s book, starring Sigourney Weaver, was a popular success (1988). Sigourney Weaver became honorary chair of the Digit Fund (later the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International), a position she still holds.

Facts about gorilla habituation experience

Why is gorilla habituation experience not included in UWA Tariffs

Gorilla habituation experience is currently not included in UWA tariffs because it is under mock stage. Currently it costs USD1500.00 per person and when this is approved, it will be included in UWA tariffs.

How long do you spend with gorillas during gorilla habituation experience

If you book a permit for gorilla habituation, you will allowed to spend four hours with mountain gorillas under habituation. These four hours excludes the time you spend to reach the gorillas.

When does gorilla habituation experience start?

Unlike gorilla trekking which starts at 8:30 am, mountain gorilla habituation starts at 7:30am and briefing is done much earlier.

Can I do gorilla habituation experience in any region of Bwindi

Gorilla habituation experience is currently possible in Rushaga located on the southern part of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. It is thus not possible in Buhoma or Ruhija side of the forest. This is because currently, it is only in Rushaga that we have two mountain gorilla families being habituated as compared to other regions which do not have gorilla families under habituation. For those interested in this experience should be ready to go to the south and book accommodation closer to Rushaga since this activity requires an early start.

What is included in gorilla habituation experience permit

This includes rangers, researchers and spending four hours with mountain gorillas under habituation. It also includes park entrance fees for Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

How different is gorilla trekking from gorilla habituation?

There so many differences between gorilla trekking and gorilla habituation. Gorilla trekking costs USD600.00 and you get to spend only one hour with habituated mountain gorillas. Gorilla habituation costs USD1500.00 allowing you to spend four hours with mountain gorillas still under habituation. It only takes place in regions that have mountain gorillas under habituation and as of now, its only in Rushaga where new gorilla groups of Bikingi and Bushaho are under habituation.

What is the minimum age for gorilla habituation experience

The minimum age for gorilla habituation is 15 years and above and all the book guildlines are same as those for gorilla trekking. In terms of numbers, gorilla habituation is limited to only six people