The gorilla sanctuary,Uganda’s expanding ‘gold mine‘

The gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park are the single most drawing feature for foreign tourists to Uganda.

Dwelling in the dense moist tropical forest found in south western Uganda, the mountain gorilla strikes you as a ferocious animal at first sight. With black eyes, thick black shiny fur and as tall as six feet weighing up to more than 200 kilogrammes, the mountain gorilla has become one of the biggest attractions for many tourists who visit Uganda.

The park is home for at least half of the 700 remaining mountain gorillas in the world. The rest are found in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Tourists have flown thousands of miles from Europe, the USA and Asia and gladly paid $500 (Shs 950,000) for a day of standing on a muddy shrubbery slope in the remote forest battling flies, rain and an occasional gorilla dung and just one hour of gazing at the giant primates.
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Despite the expanding gorilla tourist industry, Ugandans are still ignorant about the presence of this industry and opt to spend their money visiting savannah vegetation tourists sites.

The first time the park guide says “look, there they are”, your heart skips a beat. Among the greens of the slopes of Ruhija, a section of the park located in Kabale, a gentle giant turns its head lazily as it looks up at who could be interrupting its vegetable breakfast.

He is known as Mugisha, a young black male gorilla who is estimated to be four- years- old and a member of a group of 13 gorillas who have been habituated by the Uganda Wildlife Authority for tourism.

Habituating a gorilla is a process where gorillas are taught to be tolerant of people and their presence. The wild gorillas can be violent even to humans.
As the tourists approach Mugisha, he becomes a little suspicious and charges trying to scare them away by making a deep guttural sound.

“Just stay where you are and start taking pictures with the cameras with no flash light. If you run away he will run after you and attack,” Silver, a ranger says.

Seemingly frightened, the tourists start shooting pictures of the young male and Mugisha soon realises that these are the usual visitors. Seconds after, the nearby bush starts rustling and a bigger male silverback estimated to be at least 15- years- old, makes a sound notifying the young male to give the visitors a break.

“He is the leader of the group known as Karamuzi. He is trying to tell him to calm down. The rest of the young males and group members have to listen to him,” Silver says as he makes a sound similar to that of gorillas to say we are friendly and will not be harm them.

Mugisha walks away and lies in the nearby bush leaving Karamuzi to entertain the tourists with nothing more than stuffing leaves and branches in his already swollen belly. The rest of the group is helping itself to leaves and also taking time to take a nap.

The tourists are given one hour to take pictures and ask all sorts of questions about the gorillas. Ruhija is one of the locations where tourists can get a view of the gorillas in the park which is located in the three districts of Kabale, Kanungu and Kisoro that was opened up six months ago.

The price for a gorilla trekking permit was recently hiked from $360 to $500 for a foreign tourist bringing approximately $7.3 million in foreign tourist revenue to Uganda last year.

However, while many foreign tourists long to catch a glimpse of the rare gorilla, Ugandans seem to be unbothered by this as few of them have taken time to see them even at a lower fee of Shs250,000.

According to the chief warden of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Charles Tumwesigye, most Ugandans don’t have interest in seeing them as well as going through the trouble of trekking down a gorilla in such hostile environment.

“We probably see four to five Ugandans a month while we see around 35 foreign tourists a day during peak seasons. It’s not the cost but lack of interest. Even when the permits where Shs100,000, they were still not coming. More Ugandans go to the national parks with savannah vegetation like Queen Elizabeth National Park where it’s easier for them to sit in a car and catch a glimpse of the animals,” Tumwesigye says.

He says that many Ugandans confuse chimpanzees seen at the zoo in Entebbe for gorillas.
Unlike Ugandans who would prefer ‘clean’ vacation in places like Zanzibar, the foreign tourists come to track the gorillas fully prepared to get dirty.

“I guess they do not want to fly half the way around the world, sit eight hours in a car just to walk five minutes to stand in clean trekking gear looking all posh. Most of them are prepared to get really dirty for the cause,” Mr Tumwesigye says.

Trekking the gorillas involves long hours of walking through thick forests trying to locate the animals which move every day from place to place looking for food.

With the increasing demand for the gorilla permits, it has been agreed to open up another gorilla trekking destination in Bwindi- Kenya Safari

This coming April tourists can also trek at Rushaga on the south side of the park bringing the number of trekking sites to four after Ruhija opened up last October.

At the same time Uganda has followed Rwanda’s example of letting eight tourists in per gorilla group, the number is up from six per group.
For more information, click here: About mountain gorillas, Gorilla facts, ref