Gorilla habituation experience in Bwindi National Park Uganda

The popular gorilla trekking adventure gives you a wonderful opportunity to spend 1 hour with the gorillas in the their natural habitat. But if you would like the chance to spend more time with the gorillas, learn more about the gorillas and their habitat, the Gorilla Habituation Experience (GHEX) in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park offers just that.

The gorilla habituation experience is a 4 hour activity and no more than 4 travelers can do the experience in a day. Also, only one gorilla family is available for this experience in Bwindi National Park.

The travelers join researchers and park trackers on their routine of habituating a family of gorillas. Habituation is the process of getting the gorillas to accept human presence. This process can take up to 3 years and involves continuous visits to the gorillas by the researchers and trained park trackers till when the gorillas can then tolerate human presence for a short period of time without perceiving them as a threat when the normal reaction would be to flee or charge at the humans.

On the day of the Gorilla Habituation Experience tour the travelers and habituating park team sets out as early as 6am and trek to the location where the gorillas were last seen the previous day and it is from there the 4 hours Gorilla Habituation Experience (GHEX) starts. You will follow clues left behind by the gorillas such as their droppings, broken vegetation, foot prints etc… and follow the trail till you find the gorillas and observe them for the remaining time from the 4 hours. If you find the gorillas within an hour of tracking them they you will have 3 hours of following them. You will also collect importation information from the clues left by the gorillas along the trail and during observation of the gorillas which is used for the research purposes.

The Gorilla Habituation Experience is physically more demanding than the gorillas trekking because the gorillas here are still undergoing habituation and not yet used to human presence hence they to tend travel quite often and sometimes flee off when approached and so you will be trekking more in trying to keep up with them.

After the gorilla habituation experience you can even follow up with the researchers on the progress of the gorillas

Cost of the gorilla habituation experience in Bwindi

Cost is 1500 USD. And only persons 15 years and above can join the experience

How is the gorilla habituation experience different from the known gorilla trekking adventure?

When travelers go for the famous gorilla trekking adventure in Bwindi National Park or Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, they will track down a habituated gorilla family by taking the shortest route to the gorillas and spend a maximum of 1 hour with the gorillas after finding them. The park guides have a clue of the location of the gorillas that is given to them by advance park trackers.