Month: February 2021

BREAKING NEWS!! The lion is no longer the biggest cat in the Pearl of Africa – Uganda. The Tiger is!

Uganda has received a pair of tigers, a female/tigress and a male/tiger, that will call Uganda Wildlife Education Center (Entebbe Zoo) their home. The tigers were got from South Africa and were traded for 25 Ugandan monkeys.

The tigers are of the Bengal tiger species, and they are stunning with their brown color and white color coats. The brown is the female while the white is the male

Uganda Wildlife Education Center continues to shine after it was recently named the best zoo in central and east Africa, and now it is the only place to have tigers in East Africa. The zoo has over 350 species of wildlife, with over 20 cats which now include the two tigers. Some of the other big cats at the zoo include lions, hyenas, leopard, and cheetah.

The tigers were brought in at a perfect time after covid 19 pandemic lockdown which greatly affected the zoo’s finances because it was not receiving any visitors and thus no money to care for the animals. Hundreds of people are now streaming into the zoo on a daily to catch a glimpse of these stunning animals that have overtaken the lions as the biggest cats in the land.

Unlike lions which can be found in the savannah parks in Uganda (Murchison Falls, Kidepo Valley, and Queen Elizabeth) and Africa at large, the tigers are not native to the African continent and can be found only in zoos such as the Uganda Wildlife Education Center. Tigers are native to Asia.

The Uganda Wildlife Education Center or Entebbe Zoo is one of the top places to visit in Entebbe.

Visit the Entebbe Zoo and watch the tigers in their own fenced enclosure, plus see other wildlife in their enclosures as you walk through the zoo. There is NO special fee needed to the see the tigers. You just have to pay the entrance fee to the zoo, which is 10,000 (ten thousand) Uganda shillings for adults, and 5,000 (five thousand) Uganda shilling for kids.

Experiential chimpanzee tracking/trekking or premium tracking of chimpanzees is the new chimpanzee tourism product that has been introduced in Kibale National Park, the prime destination for chimpanzee tours in Uganda. Experiential chimpanzee tracking is a more exclusive tour which allows a small group of tourists to track a community of chimps (100+ chimps) alone and spend 1 – 2 hours with the chimps.

Chimps live in communities and Kibale National Park has 5 communities that have been habituated for tourism and research. A community of chimps can have more than 100 chimps, and the chimps in the community organize into different groups or families (lets say, like human communities). The most popular of the 5 habituated communities in Kibale National Park is called Kanyanchu and its the one used for the traditional chimpanzee tracking tours which allow the 1 hour of chimp watching and several groups of tourists set out to track the different groups/families in the kanyanchu community which can lead to crisscrossing of tourist groups and crowding spoiling the experience. The experiential or premium chimpanzee tracking is more exclusive as a small group of tourists will track another habituated community, the Ngogo chimps community which has been a research group & is 99% habituated. The small group of tourists will have the whole ngogo community alone uninterrupted and watch the chimps for 1 – 2 hours. The experiential chimpanzee tracking is a more intimate and enjoyable experience.

Cost of the experiential chimpanzee tracking in Kibale National Park

The exclusivity also comes with a higher cost as it will cost $400 per person. The ordinary chimpanzee tracking of the Kanyanchu chimps costs $200

Experiential chimpanzee tracking is NOT chimpanzee habituation experience

Experiential tracking should not be confused with the Chimpanzee Habituation Experience which also allows allows a group of tourists track another of the 5 chimp communities which however is still undergoing habituation. During the habituation tracking tourists set out early in the morning, as early as 5am, so that they can find the chimps before they wake up from their nests and follow them up for 4 hours. It can be intense because the chimps are still undergoing habituation

You can book our 3 day chimpanzee tour to Kibale National Park and request for the experiential option, or visit this page for more Uganda chimpanzee trips that be customized to included the experiential option