Gorilla habituation Uganda safari experience has no actual definition but it can be described as the act of training wild gorillas to become used to the sight of people. Gorilla habituation experience involves a number of groups of people like the gorilla trackers, conservationists, researchers and rangers among others. This experience takes a period of about 2 to 3 years. The people involved in gorilla habituation get to understand the gorillas deeper and individually, know their behaviors and even get to the point of naming every single one of them. In the end, if the researchers are certain that the wild gorillas are okay with the presence of people, a mock exercise is done as a way of testing to prove their facts. When the gorillas pass this kind of exercise which now includes journalists and scientists, the gorilla group is then available for trekking.

This experience only restricts tourists to a maximum of 4 each day. Thus, permit bookings for the Uganda gorilla habituation experience should be done like 6 months prior the actual habituation day especially during the months of December all through to March and July to October.

Ever since gorilla trekking safaris Uganda were started in Bwindi forest National Park, there are now over 11 gorilla families that tourists go to track. However, tourists have always been given 1 hour to interact with the gorillas on their Uganda gorilla safaris. The 1 hour restricted is to protect the gorillas from getting used to humans and for the fact that they are shy, they don’t want to be around people for long. However, tourists have never found this 1 hour enough to be with the gorillas.

Therefore, in 2015, the Uganda wildlife Authority in its campaign to create more gorilla experience for tourists that would love to spend more hours with mountain gorillas during their Uganda Rwanda gorilla trekking safaris, without doing more than one gorilla trek. The Uganda wildlife Authority came up with a four-hour gorilla habituation experience in the southern part of Bwindi to cater for those tourists.

Booking a gorilla habituation experience trek was restricted to one gorilla family but at the moment, there are two mountain gorilla families that been dedicated to this four-hour gorilla habituation experience in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The gorilla families are at Nkuringo and Rushaga. A Uganda gorilla safari habituation permit costs $1500 while a Uganda gorilla trekking safari permit costs $600.

Since this kind of experience is hardly existing in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo, tourists can only find this activity in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park and Mgahinga National Park.