African Safari for Gorilla Trekking

In Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, lies south-western Uganda about 530km from the Capital (Kampala) and close to the borders of Rwanda and DRC. One of the world’s endangered primates have started multiplying in Number in some parts of their location. Bwindi is one of the areas that the gorillas have increased in number, adding from 300 to 340 gorillas after the produced their babies. This was according to the census results carried out in the Bwindi impenetrable forest with the help of the authority and the locals.

An increase by 12% growth in numbers is a clear indication that the wildlife conservation programs being implemented in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park the prime destination of bird watchers and gorilla trekking. Of over a half a population of 700 gorillas in the world there are positive results to this families to increase further, said the executive director of Uganda wildlife Authority.
During the time of wars that almost ruined the east African Nations in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the primate were being hunted for a meal and this almost extinguished the gorillas from their locations in the three countries of Uganda, Rwanda and the DR Congo, however the population of the gorillas today stands at 720 with half the number in Uganda. However, between April and June 2006, a census of the gorillas was carried Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, and the experts registered an increase of a total of 30 gorilla groups up from 28 in 1997, with the numbers in each group varying between 3 and 28. The several conservation groups found 11 lonely solitary males, which don’t yet have a family.

Mapesa said the analysis of the gorillas’ different age groups provides an optimistic picture of the future of these gentle giants, whose endangered conservation status has made them one of the world's most popular tourist attractions since the 1990s. However Mapesa was quick to add that there is some concern that regular contact with humans is limiting the number of females joining the habituated groups from the unhabituated groups.

Of the 30 groups, five are habituated of which four are utilized for tourism while one is used for research. The five habituated gorilla groups have a total number of 76 gorillas, constituting 23% of the total gorilla population in the park. Because of the increase in the gorilla population and the continued health status, UWA has started a habituation process for two more gorilla groups in Rushaga and Ruhija (in the Kabale area) as part of efforts to boost tourism revenue and satisfy the increasing public demand for gorilla tracking.

Some of the groups that took part in the census of the Gorilla’s were the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation, Wildlife Conservation Society, UWA, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and others.