Another Habituated Gorilla Group in Bwindi Forest

The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has started habituating another group of gorillas in a bid to enlarge tourism in the southern part of the Bwindi National Park in south-western Uganda. Sam Mwandha, the director of conservation told The New Vision on Monday that habituation of the Bikingi gorilla group begun recently.

He said that it is too early to say when they will be able to accept human presence and plans to establish this in the next few months. Bikingi is the 8th group to be habituated out of the 34 found in Bwindi Forest in 20 years. Lately, Nsongi, another gorilla group in the southern part of Bwindi, was habituated. Bitukura, Mubare, Habinyanja, Nkuringo, Rushegura and Kyaguriro are the other habituated groups.

Mwandha said after Bikingi, no more gorillas will be habituated until 2012. More than half the 760 mountain gorillas in the world are found in Bwindi. Gorilla tracking contributes between 40% and 50% of the tourism revenue.