Guide to Uganda Gorilla Habituation Experience to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Gorilla Habituation is a process of taming Mountain gorillas to get used to human beings by breaking the wild gorilla behavior so as to create a positive gorilla human interaction. So, habituation is a process of taming, mounting gorillas to get used to human beings, and we always do this for a period of two to three years.

The Gorilla Habituation process takes two to three years’ habituating a particular group before making it available for gorilla trekking tours and is open to 8 member watching vs the 4 member watching experience.

Day before we start following a good lucky gorilla family group. when it comes into gorilla habituation experience , there are many factors considered  to make the experience unique and different from gorilla trekking tour where 1 hour with the gorillas vs 4 hours, 4 pax vs 8 pax gorilla trek.

Gorilla Habituation is the act of making travelers see the mountain gorillas that are in the habituation process to be opened up for trekking. The trackers always follow the gorillas for months to ensure that the visit is guaranteed to come face to face with the gorillas in the wild.  Gorilla Safaris Africa guarantees the travelers that 99% you will see the Mountain Gorillas.

Things to consider choosing habituated gorilla family

• Group Size :  As per the regulations and rules, the Uganda wildlife authority warden selects the best group size with many individuals since they prefer larger family sizes as it attracts and interests many travelers to trek the Mountain gorillas. If more than 15 members in first encounter. There are higher chances of that group to be a multi-male group, meaning a group of more than one Silverback. So, if I in two Silverbacks are there, so it becomes hard to follow such a group reason being the two Silverbacks can easily split, whereby the other Silver Back can stay with his members.
• Group Divisions and Fights : Another silverback can run away with some members, and you end up being left with a very few members. Two, we also do not take such families, because when this Silverbacks gang up together, we may not reposition to match the level of aggressiveness and the this kind of families tend to take even more than three years for us to habituate them, thus making it more costly for us.

Note FYI

So, we prefer groups of average numbers

When Uganda wildlife authority rangers & trackers start following the group. For the first six months. During the first encounter with the wild gorillas, the trackers may keep a good distance with the gorillas as they are always shy to see people. They try to avoid face to face encounter with the gorillas.

Trackers can be hearing mountain gorilla making chuckling” or “hoarse laughing sound as they shy way from the physical meet with the trackers in the wilderness of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Trackers keep following the Mountain Gorillas until when the group will get used to the trackers in the wild and then the group could be opened up for gorilla trekking experiences.

Such an interaction now gives us room to do the imitations. Gorilla Trackers imitate these animals purposely to make them feel we are part of them and will show them that we are friendly people. Among the things that we imitate includes the distinctive vocalizations that they use for communication. Good lives are good, about 14 different vocals through which they communicate to each other, and we are in a position to imitate a number of those vocals.

So when we do those vocals after the animals, they feel we are part of them. We also try to pretend to feed on the vegetation gorillas being 99 percent vegetarians.

As Mountain Gorillas feed on leaves and the trackers start to pick their leaves as they follow them. The idea we are throwing them down that will attract the attention of the animals. They try to stay at us and see. What are these people doing? The other thing we do is to make just cheat beats a just beat. This is a major sign of showing off their strengths when they are encountered by gorilla trackers. This is the conservation method that was used by Dian Fossey during the habituation of the Rwanda Mountain Gorillas in Volcanoes National Park.

The human being chest bits are not as loud as for the Mountain Gorillas, so they end up losing any potential fear from human presence as result they are open to gorilla trekking adventurers that select to explore Uganda Mountain Gorillas in the wild. . They start undermining us as weak individuals, and eventually they end up coming more close to us and become relaxed. So, after a period of one year?

As the rules for Gorilla trekking , the same apply to gorilla habituation travelers and they are not allowed to record videos when the flash of the cameras are on.

The gorilla trackers will orient the clients about these rules and regulations before heading for the gorilla habituation experience in the famous Bwindi Impenetrable National Park mainly in Rushaga sector. The Gorilla habituation is only restricted to 4 pax and they stay with the family for only 4 hours meaning that gorillas will be given an opportunity to enjoy their day today routine activities.