Sound of the jungle discovery

We will never forget our encounter with these gentle low land gorillas. On 28thJune 2013 I went with Paolo Neri and Patrizia Amadelli (from Modena, Italy) for the trekking of low-land gorillas in Kahuzi Biega National Park. We spent the night before at a beautiful lodge in the surrounding of Bukavu town, Coco Lodge. The service was excellent, the place superb and you start feeling the presence of the nearby gorillas, as many information are displayed in the lodge itself. In the morning, after a short transfer by vehicle, we arrived at the Head Quarter of the National Park. With a surprise, we were the only visitors taking the activity. It is very unfortunate that the international image of Congo is so bad, that even safe places like Bukavu and Kahuzi Biega National Park are suffering loss of tourism because of the general image of the Eastern Congo situation of unrest. We went with the rangers to a family of 37 gorillas, Chimanuka. The rangers were the most professional; they even gave us masks to cover our mouth so that we better respect the habitat and the gorillas.  It took us less than 45 minutes to meet and greet the friendly gorillas. As soon as we arrived to the point they were, the whole family was there watching us as we watched them, the babies in most cases came closer to us, some wanting to touch our cameras because they were very curious. We watched them feed, play and clap hands (interesting). When our guide clapped his hands, the small babies and the juveniles also clapped and it was such a thrilling adventure for us. This trekking was the most exciting; you really feel the real adventure, the real remote tropical forest, in its full powerful presence. It is just incredible that travelers miss out this trekking because they fear to enter the border of Congo. As long as you have acquired a valid visa from an Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo, you will only see how in Bukavu and Kahuzi Biega everything is safe and well organized. Not only that: tourism will help conservation; we need to support tourism in Congo because this is how the gorillas will be always being protected.Check out our itinerary for the trekking of Low land gorillas or you can take the long program the Eden of Africa Safari. Thank you to Paolo Neri to give us the permission to use his beautiful and amazing photographs for our gallery.
Allen Natukunda

The Minister for tourism Mrs. Maria Mutagamba launched a 10-year general management plan for Musambwa Island tourism programme in Rakai district. The Musambwa Island lies in Lake Victoria and as of now, is a major breeding ground for birds that migrate from Europe and other parts of Africa. The island is recognized internationally as an Important Bird Area (IBA) which was designated by Ramsar Convention and bird life international.
The management plan for this Island was formulated under the cultural values and Conservation project implemented by Fauna and Flora International (FFI) and Rakai District Local Government. While at the ceremony, the Minister warned the public to stop killing birds since they have now become a key tourist attraction in Uganda’s Tourism industry today. In her speech, she pointed out that the Musambwa Island has potential to fetch huge sums of money especially from foreign tourists because of its unique strong cultural values and rare bird species.
At the Island, among the cultural values includes prohibiting of sexual intercourse while women are also not allowed to become residents on the islands. In addition to this also, harming any living organism on the Island is not accepted according to the Musambwa Chairman Conservation Committee Mr. Enock Ntale.Culture and leisure tourism should be promoted on the Island and this will boost the local revenue collections for the district.  It will also create job opportunities especially from the Musambwa Island project through the tour guide initiatives and cultural community performances from local groups.
More to this, the government will also soon identify at least two homes per sub-county to operate as tourism stay homes for those tourists interested in cultural adventures to know more about a true Ugandan Culture and people’s ways of living.
We have a special package for the Uganda Cultural tour in the north with the Karamajongs region which gives you a clear view of a true Karamajong ways of life. We can as well promote the same objective in Rakai district and other parts of the country.

From 14thto 21st May 2013, Uganda will join the rest of the world to mark and celebrate the cultural week. The theme for this year is “Creative Industries; a Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation”. Therefore, the country will put more emphasis on creative industries for employment and wealth creation.
During the cultural week, emphasis will also be put on tree planting, but with a view of enhancing culture. Trees like Mutuba are advised to be planted since it’s the one which is used to make Backcloth a back bone of Uganda’s culture.
According to the state Minister for elderly and disabled Sulaiman Madada while addressing the members of the Uganda Rural Development and Training (URDT) programme in Kibaale district, the creative industry is taking shape in Uganda so there is need to emphasize it. He also added that Uganda’s education system is purely academic and this must change if we are to have meaningful development.
According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), each country must prioritize two tangible cultural products, which are backcloth and trumpet music. In order for the next generation to have culture, Ugandans are all obliged to promote and preserve culture because if you do not preserve it now, no one will do it for the next generation.

On April 29th2013 it was announced by the Uganda Wildlife Authority that Bitukura gorilla group welcomed a new baby.  The number of this family increased more by one after a new birth was registered. Ruhara who is an adult female Gorilla gave birth to a baby much to the delight of the entire Bitukura family and Gorilla friends. The family size is now regaining after some defections which were witnessed last year. Rukara, who was also a silverback left the group and joined Kyaguliro family which is for research purposes and has not yet returned.
It was observed that the infants and juveniles of the group were struggling to feel the new infant who was strongly guarded and monitored by the dominant Silverback Ndahura. The mother was seen dedicating the most of the time to this new infant while breast feeding and grooming the infant. Generally the family is happy and has been seen happy going about their usual daily routines with no worries.
Despite the loss of three members last year who defected to other gorilla families, the family looks happily and closer to one another. One of the trackers who located the newly born infant Gorilla contends that the family often nests at Bugarama where the Silver Back Ndahura has lately established his home range.We highly recommend this family to our clients too because of the large numbers of gorilla individuals the family has. As of now, the family has 15 individuals and our Uganda Safaris include a 3days Gorilla Safari to Bwindi National Park where you will find these endangered primates and be able to track Bitukura Gorilla family or any other family in the Park.

The Southern sector of Rushaga in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park originally had only one Gorilla family which is Nshongi. However, as of recent, the sector has undergone a lot of transformation since the effectiveness of Gorilla tourism in the Park. Nshongi at the time of its habituation had the world’s largest mountain gorilla numbers but since its break up, three more families have been habituated including Mishaya and Bweza who split on 1st August 2012.
In the same sector, another gorilla group was habituated which is Kahungye has also witnessed yet another breakaway hence creating the new family called Busingye. This is now good news since many Gorilla permits will be available for sale for Gorilla Safaris and tours in Bwindi. The Gorilla family is led by a dominant silverback Busingye who fights constantly in the wild for female adults. Busingye Gorilla group split from Kahungye family on 4th June 2012 and as of now the Rushaga sector has 5 gorilla groups including: Mishaya, Kahungye, Nshongi, Bweza and Busingye.
The strong Busingye silver back has however from time to time showed how capable he is to tilt the power balance in the south which has a crowded home range of its habituated gorillas that keep over lapping one another. Whenever he interacts with a wild family which is not yet habituated, he mercilessly grabs a female from that group for himself and joins the family.According to the Area Conservation Manager BMCA Mr. Pontius Ezuma, Uganda Wildlife Authority has got more space available for tourists who intend to do gorilla tracking in the southern sector of the Bwindi Park. He advises that the visitors can now book this family because it is one of the versatile and exciting groups one can visit for a memorable time while in Bwindi’s Impenetrable park for gorilla tourism.
A research from the BMCA Monitoring team which is led by the Research Warden Kato Raymond shows that there are no intentions of the breakaway families to fuse back to their parent families in the future. This is characterized by the fierce battles between mother and breakaway families. The battles are only restricted to dominant silverbacks who are supposed to guard their turf. Due to these battles, each group has not tried to avoid direct interactions with one another for fear f potential loss of members.
Once this group is open to tourism and permits are ready for sale at the Uganda Wildlife Authority, we will let all our customers know and also have an experience with the new family while on their Uganda Gorilla Safaris.

Laura Sonnino who was 94 years old from Italy on March 14, 2013 became the oldest person to have tracked mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in South western Uganda. She was born on 20/5/1919 and she successfully tracked the Nkuringo Gorilla Family in the south where she viewed the playful great apes.
Laura says she had once tried to track Gorillas in Buhoma in 2002 but failed to see them because of the difficult terrain. Tracking Gorillas has been her main dream and this time she had everything arranged in advance for her tracking to be a success. To do this, she hired 12 strong porters who carried her on a stretcher to and from the Gorillas location at an extra fee of 300 US dollars. It was a real record since by 11.30 am she was already back from tracking. The last recorded oldest person to have tracked the much sought after gorillas was 82. All congratulations go to Laura for that feat, courage and love for these endangered species.                                                           

Uganda the Pearl of Africa emerged the 5th best exhibitor in Africa at the annual ITB Berlin 2013 Travel and Tourism Exhibition, a world leading travel trade show in Germany. According to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ms Mutagamba, the country was working on a programme to extend its tourism beyond nature to include culture and medicine. The theme for this year at the Exhibition was “Uganda the Pearl of Africa, your Eco-Tourism Destination”.  According to the minister, Uganda’s attraction, based on inquiries, were Gorillas in Bwindi Forest, the climate in Kibaale District and wildlife in Kidepo and Queen Elizabeth National Parks.
At the Exhibition, one of the exciting attractions was the Ndere cultural dancers who are said to have pulled crowds from different angles.As a country, we have to improve on certain things like cleanliness and the road network. It looks like we have left cleaning our country to God and yet when tourists come, they want to see and visit clean places,” Ms Mutagamba said.
lTB Berlin exhibition is an annual event which takes place in March in Germany. In 2011, Uganda received more than a million foreign tourists and the tourism industry is said to be growing at 21 per cent annually and the German market growing at 10 per cent with more than 8,000 Germans having visited the country in 2011. With this, more emphasis is now put on promoting Sustainable tourism in Uganda as well as preserving the traditional Cultures.

Ngamba Island is the only chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda and recently it signed an agreement with Fly Uganda which is a well known safari company to fly tourist to the Island where the sanctuary is found.
Ms Ajarova and Mr Barners after signing the agreement.According to Ms. Lilly Ajarova a sanctuary executive director, some tourists get seasick and others do not have that much time like a full day to travel to the Island on the lake where the Sanctuary is located. The journey to the Island takes 45 minutes by speed boat and 90 minutes by traditional motorized boat. It is because of this that they have now decided to make the transport easier by signing an agreement pact with Fly Uganda and which will enable tourists to reach the Island in only 15 minutes.
According to the Sanctuary Executive director, they have carried out different test flights at the sanctuary and the chimpanzees all responded positively by not running but instead gathered near to have a glimpse of the helicopter.
More to this, it will even be much easier to save the lives of the chimpanzees by transporting them by Air to the main land for medical evacuations and further treatment.

 Se siete amanti del cielo, e vi piacerebbe fare un’esperienza unica del cielo notturno Africano, forse questo è il viaggio che fa per voi. Stiamo raccogliendo le iscrizioni per il programma “Uganda Eclisse Totale Novembre 2013”, organizzato in collaborazione con un’associazione di esperti di viaggi “stellari” ovvero gli amici di Stella Errante di Roma. Con loro si partirà sia da Roma sia da Milano o altri aeroporti il giorno 31 ottobre 2013, per venire in Uganda accompagnati da un esperto astrofilo che vi metterà in grado di gustare l’esperienza dell’eclisse solare ma anche intrattenendovi con esplorazioni notturne del cielo Ugandese. L’eclisse che vedrete in Uganda, per l’esattezza il giorno 3 novembre a partire dalle ore 16.06 ora di Greenwich  è di tipo “ibrido”, ovvero i dischi del sole e della luna saranno quasi coincidenti. L’osservazione avverrà da un luogo individuato nel nord del Parco di Murchison Falls.
Contiamo di fare un gruppetto affiatato di almeno 10 fino a massimo 20 persone. Inoltre incluso nel servizio ci sarà anche l’accompagnamento di una guida in lingua italiana di supporto al gruppo. Il programma si svolgerà non con l’uso di grandi bus, ma con i mezzi di trasporto di Destination Jungle per i safari, ovvero le nostre amate land cruisers 4x4 tettuccio apribile.Il viaggio, naturalmente, vi consentirà di farvi un’idea della bellezza naturalistica della Rift Valley Albertina, visitando i parchi nazionali del Murchison Falls (che si trova vicino al passaggio dell’eclisse) e il Queen Elizabeth. Non mancheranno poi le esperienze con i primati, ovvero il trekking dei gorilla nella foresta di Bwindi Impenetrabile e il trekking degli scimpanzè nella foresta di Budongo.
Vi invitiamo a leggere bene il programma, che offre sia una opzione breve di 6 giorni (solo la parte dell’eclisse e del parco Murchison Falls), oppure una opzione lunga di 10 giorni. Per prenotare, potete contattare sia Destination Jungle sia Stella Errante a Roma, ovvero il sig. Marzio il cui telefono è: +39 06 8840504 e la mail: marzio@civaturs.com.Vi aspettiamo in Uganda, by Costantino Tessarin 

Elephant Struggling to Stand
On the 12th of February 2013, our three clients, the guide and I saved a young elephant which had been trapped in a wire snare and was in deep pain in Murchison Falls National park. We had woken up early for the morning game drive and everything had been going on so well till we met a young elephant which had been sitting and not feeding. 
A big snare in the ElephantOne of our clients, Carlos Gereda asked me if I thought it was sick/dead or may be dying at that moment. The driver guide Kiganda Ismail told him that it could just be resting. However, out of curiosity the other clients, Daniella and Manuel insisted and said it was very strange for an elephant to just sit down while the others were feeding. It is at this moment that we drove closer to the elephant which could barely stand up because of the pain it was in. As we moved closer to him, he eventually struggled and stood up and at this point, we saw what had caused everything. A big wire snare around the head and it had already cut it (see picture). We all burst in tears and right away started making calls for UWA to come in and save the elephant. What we expected was a place of peace for these animals has eventually turned into a war zone because the following day after the sad and horrible scene, UWA managed to collect 285 wire snares along the delta as we were informed by Patrick Agaba from Uganda Conservation Foundation. Also from the head office of UWA in Kampala Mr. Raymond Engena was so kind sending an apology for what happened and saying that UWA is trying to improve on the situation of poaching. On the following days he also told us that the UWA veterinary Mr. Enyel managed to remove the snare from the baby elephant and the animal is expected to recover from this accident. Fortunately this elephant was saved! By Allen Natukunda
 UWA Ranger guides with snares collected from the Park

On 11thFebruary Monday this week in Arusha at the Mt. Meru Hotel, the award ceremony for the 7 natural wonders of Africa, chosen from the 12 accepted nominations took places and saw the mighty River Nile, which starts its journey to the Mediterranean Sea at the ‘Source of the Nile’ in Jinja elected as Uganda’s only winner. The State Minister for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquiries Hon. Agnes Akiror Egunyu was present at the function to receive the honors for and on behalf of the Pearl of Africa- Uganda.
Besides the Mighty River Nile, other 11 attractions nominated were the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Peak of Furnace on La Reunion, Mt. Kenya, the Okavanago Delta, the Aldabra Atoll, the Avenue of Baobabs, the Sahara Desert, the Red Sea Reef, Tsuma Rock and Tsingi de Bemaraha.
The hosting Nation Tanzania saw all the three nominations returned as winners and these were the Serengeti National Park, Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Ngorongoro Crater. Other attractions which made it into the winning rank were the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the Red Sea Reef in Egypt and the Sahara Desert which touches 10 countries.East Africa being named as among the top 7 natural ‘wonders’ in Africa, it is thought to give a significant boost visa vis destination interest in the main markets for tourists coming to Eastern Africa including Uganda and Tanzania.

Local communities around Lake Mburo, Kidepo and Murchison falls National Park are set to be given licenses to keep or farm wild animals on their land courtesy of the Africa Wildlife Foundation. Tourists who intend to visit these animals will be expected to pay a sum of money directly to those keeping them rather than through the park authorities. This $10 million dollar USAID funded project was launched at Lake Mburo National Park last week. In the long run, this program is expected to improve conservation of Budongo and Karinzu forests. There has been a lot of logger heads between the local communities and the park authorities over wild animals straying into their farms. As of now, local people with small pieces of land will form groups to bring it together for viable use.
The project is the first one of its kind in Uganda but not in Africa simply because it has been tested and benefited many communities in countries like Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, DR Congo and Rwanda. Only local people with a valid license from the Uganda Wildlife Authority will be allowed to keep wildlife.

On November 3rd 2013, the total solar Hybrid eclipse will pass over Western Africa in Equatorial Gabon, Congo, Uganda, Kenya and finally Ethiopia. This is a hybrid eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 1.0159. Totality will be visible with the maximum of 1 minute 39 seconds visible from the Atlantic Ocean south of Ivory Coast and Ghana. This eclipse will be experienced in Northern Uganda (Apoka in Kidepo National Park) and Murchison Falls National Park. This eclipse of November 3rd is a Hybrid Eclipse which means that along the central section of the path it will be a very short total eclipse while at the beginning of the path there will be an annular eclipse. Hence the unofficial term "hybrid" being associated with this very special type of eclipse. The reason is that the darkest shadow of the moon doesn't quite reach the surface at those locations. Such a narrow and abrupt eclipse will come with a prominent presentation of the colorful Sinner most atmospheric layer of the Sun (the chromospheres) and a spectacular view along the axis of the Moon’s shadow. Satellite and surface measurements indicate that the weather prospect in northern Uganda and Kenya is the best along the entire 2013 eclipse track.

Check out our tour for the eclipse this November:http://www.safaritoeastafrica.com/index.php/total-eclipse-nov2013.html. This is a total action-packed adventure programme, crowned by a total solar eclipse low over the remote villages of northern Uganda. It is sure to be a memorable experience with us. Nevertheless, the eclipse is considered to be one of the most awe some and inspiring spectacles in all of nature which is worth traveling to go see. You will observe the sky taking on an eerie twilight as the Sun's bright face is replaced by the black disk of the Moon. The eclipse track begins curving to the northeast as it narrows and the duration of totality decreases. By the time this umbra reaches the western border of Uganda, totality drops to 23 seconds with the Sun at 18° (14:22 Universal Time) and then Sweeps over northern Kenya, crosses Lake Turkana where the central line duration is 14 seconds at 14:25 Universal Time.

It was confirmed that eleven elephants were slaughtered by ivory poachers in Tsavo East National Park in Kenya. After this mass killing, their tusks were chopped off and taken which remarked one of the worst single episodes of poaching in Kenya in recent years.
Kenya Wildlife Services and other conservation fraternity, demand an immediate strong hand response to hunt down those responsible for this latest elephantcide using dogs, foot and vehicle patrols and aerial surveillance. It was the entire family of eleven elephants including the young ones that was wiped out by a hail of bullets before their tusks were hacked out of the carcasses in TsavoEast National Park. Just like any other African country, Kenya has been besieged by increasingly wily and ruthless poachers due to the soaring demand for ivory in Asia. Because of this, more Elephants and Rhinos on the African continent have been poached and killed in order to get money (a pound of ivory can now fetch more than $1,000 in Beijing)
An elephant poached in Tsavo EastAccording to one researcher in Kenya named Iain Douglas-Hamilton said that he has never seen anything as bad as the poaching of these elephants since 1980’s. He has been studying Elephants for decades and he concluded that if no measure is taken into consideration, Africa is right back where it was during the 1980s as far as poaching is concerned. It’s also reported that several African rebel groups are now using ivory to finance their mayhem, and some American-backed African militaries have also been implicated in wiping out elephants. Much of this ivory is turned into bookmarks, chopsticks and other trinkets.
A recent census on elephant and Gravy Zebra in the north of Kenya has shown a significant decline in numbers and a wave of rhino killings on private conservancies and in parks has resulted in a public private partnership in Laikipia where aircraft and helicopters are now made available by private airlines to take a rapid deployment unit on site as soon as reports of gunshots or suspicious vehicle movement are reported.

According to the globe spots web portal, Rwanda was ranked sixth among the top adventurous places to visit in 2013. The country was named after Portugal, Mozambique, Kyrgyzstan, Panama and Armenia where as Cuba, Ukraine, Malawi and Canada were ranked behind Rwanda. The website is also an international travel guide for tourists just like TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet.
The Head of tourism and conservation at the Rwanda Development Board Miss. Rica Rwigamba, said the ranking will attract more tourists as the country gets more revenues from tourism sector. She added that the country has more attractions to offer to tourists beyond Mountain Gorillas.
Last year only, the tourism industry generated Rwf152.4 billion million in revenue and since the beginning of year 2012, the country hosted about 493,744 visitors, which represented an increase of 22 per cent compared with the same period in 2011.
It recorded a remarkable 16 per cent increase in leisure visitors as well as an eight per cent increase in business visitors.
Rwanda Safaris will boom next year compared to the rest of the years since the country was ranked among the top tourist destinations for 2013.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame opened the new 88 room Gorillas Golf Hotel on Nov.16 officially. The hotel is located in Nyarutarama district which is the neighborhood of Kigali city the country’s capital.
The hotel is the fourth for the hotel chain which was started 10 years ago. Other hotels of this nature are in Kigali, Musanze and Rubavu areas. The hotel investment will have benefits for the Rwandan society through Job creation and development of the tourism industry. According to President Kagame “this is a proof that no one will stand in the way of Rwanda achieving prosperity“. 
Though a small country, now Rwanda has 370 registered hotels with 6700 rooms across the country. Among the 370, only 31 have been graded and awarded stars. Several hotels are expected to open in the next few years including Marriott hotel (5 star) with 251 rooms which is still under construction.  Other soon to open hotels are Radisson Blu Hotel (5 star) which will run Kigali Convention Center with 292 rooms, Vision Hotel (4 star) with 157 rooms. Rwanda Sheraton Hotel was recently given a certificate which was a sign of appreciation.With the above hotel development in the country, Rwanda Safaris will highly be recommended due to well developed accommodation facilities and this will definitely increase the country’s tourism earning in terms of foreign exchange and revenue.

The Pearl of Africa Uganda has been declared a preferred bird watching destination 2013 and 2014 which is a development expected to promote birding activities and uphold the country as a major tourist birding destination. This declaration was mad by the government after Birdlife International a global programme on conservation and protection of birds and their habitats, and Nature Uganda announced that the country has thirty four important bird watching areas with diverse bird species.
The Minister for Tourism Ms Maria Mutagamba declared Uganda as a preferred bird watching destination during the launch of the birding campaign that attracted various birders and guides at Kasenge Forest Resort Beach in Mukono District over the weekend. The ministry had been priding in the recent accolades by Lonely Planet, which voted Uganda as the best tourism destination for 2012 and Africa Bird Club, which voted Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Africa’s number one birding site. These accolades provide an important avenue for showcasing Uganda’s rich bird diversity which account for 10% of the world’s total bird species and 50% of Africa’s bird species population.
Our Uganda Safaris include a lot of birding places like Bigodi swamp walk, Mabamba Swamp, Ngamba Islands, Ssese Islands and so on. Join us for your birding experience while on your Safari in Uganda.

Uganda wildlife Authority (UWA) has introduced a new tourism activity on Mt. Elgon national Park named the mountain bike-riding. The news was given out by the assistant warden at the national park, Mr. Stephen Nyadru, while speaking at the activity launch on Friday. He said that the new activity is aimed at attracting more tourists to the Park and it will include traversing of rocks, washouts, and steep declines, on dirt trails, logging roads, and gravel roads that wind along lazy streams through forested valleys or trails that climb up steep mountainsides; and other unpaved environments.
It is the first time that this form of tourism activity has been introduced in the country and will be most especially exercised by the tourists after climbing. This is because since most of the tourists remain dull during the descending, this activity will give them exercise down the hills as a modern form of Uganda’s tourism. The activity of mountain bike-riding will combine the pleasures of being in the mountains with the health advantages of altitude and gradients, significant level of physical exercise and the possibility to cover longer distances.
Posted by www.safaritoeastafrica.com

One of the dominant Silverback Gorilla named Cantsbee of the Pablo group in Rwanda turned 34 years yesterday. He is one of the last living mountain Gorillas named by Dian Fossey and presides over the largest group of mountain gorillas that the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International monitors.Cantsbee of Pablo Group in RwandaAt the age of 34 years, Cantsbee is still very strong and out competing his son Gicurasi who is the second ranking silverback in Pablo group for dominance.  The fund hopes that since Cantsbee is still very strong, he pushes the record of the oldest mountain gorillas it monitors since the oldest male gorilla monitored by the fund died at the age of 35 and these were Pablo and Titus.

Bwindi National Park in Uganda now has 400 mountain gorillas in its impenetrable forest. This report is according to the mountain gorilla census which was carried out in September to October 2011 in Bwindi. The latest gorilla census found that there was an increment by 60 gorillas to 340 counted in the last one in 2006 and because of this, tourists could now find it easier to track the gorillas in Bwindi. The report was confirmed and announced yesterday by the ministry of Tourism and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). With the increase in gorilla numbers, Uganda has been ranked the highest in the world as far as gorilla safarisand population is concerned. 
This gorilla population census was carried out by Uganda Wildlife Authority officials with the assistance from the international Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), the Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) in Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda Development Board (RDB) from Rwanda.
Mountain Gorilla in Bwindi National ParkAccording to the Minister of Tourism Ms Mutagambwa, there were currently 36 gorilla families in the park of Bwindi and 16 solitary males. Of the above families, only 10 are habituated for both tourism and research purposes. As of now, the world population of mountain gorillas stand at 880 in total following the two census that were carried out in Bwindi National Park in 2011 and the Virunga massif in 2010. The Virunga massif census results showed that there were 480 mountain gorillas in the parks of Mgahinga National Park (Uganda) National Park (Rwanda) and Virunga National Park (DRC). 
The gorilla population increase in Bwindi is a testimony to the sound natural resources management policies that are being implemented in the protected areas by the concerned organizations