UWA’s Nyiramahoro and Kasirye tracking the gorillas in Bwindi National Park

By Matthias Mugisha

The Uganda WildLife Authority (UWA) introduced a tourism product in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

The UWA board of trustees chairman, Andrew Kasirye, on Monday opened a new habituated gorilla family.

Kasirye lead a group of journalists and UWA officials from Ruhija, 47km from Buhoma, the park head office, in a gorilla tracking exercise of the Bitukura family, the new gorilla group.

The trackers contended with the thick montane forest and the hills to reach the gorillas that were feeding on leaves deep in the forest.

The 13-member Bitukura family is headed by a silverback called Ndahura.

The new group brings the number of ready-to-track gorilla families in the park to four.

Kasirye said the gorillas helped to build good relations with Rwanda and the DR Congo.

Sometimes the gorillas cross into the DR Congo’s Virunga National Park, Kasirye said.

One of the habituated gorilla families in Bwindi recently migrated to the the DR Congo.

Each gorilla family is visited by a maximum of eight people a day, for only one hour.

A foreign tourist pays $500 (about sh800,000), East African residents $475 (about sh760,000) and Ugandans part with sh150,000 to track the apes.

Bwindi is a sanctuary to about 340 mountain gorillas, almost half the world’s population of the rare primates.

The wildlife authority  also launched quad bikes for game drives and a new lodge, the Arcadia Cottages, in Lake Mburo National Park.

The four-wheel bikes will be hired out to visitors intending to view wild game in the the Kiruhura district picturesque park, dotted with 13 lakes.

UWA recently opened a new trail in the Rwenzori Mountains National Park.