Chimpanzee Habituation Experience – Stay Longer with Chimps

Chimpanzee Habituation Experience is when a trekker spends a longer period of time closer to the chimps especially a whole day. Chimpanzee tracking on the other hand is when a visitor looks for chimps in the forest and stays in their midst for a shorter period of time like an hour. With Chimpanzee habituation, visitors move along with park rangers and researchers to encounter chimpanzees for a full day. The experience starts from 6.30 am as tourists enjoy unprecedented close access to the wild chimps for the whole day until when they begin building their nests towards darkness.

Rangers trace the chimps by eavesdropping for their pant-hooting calls, following their eating tracks. An opportunity to spot them as they feed in fruitful trees and mingle with each other is astoundingly interesting. Though, this activity is limited to 12 people per day and have to be divided into 2 clusters of 6 members each. In Uganda, this chimp habituation experience is only offered in Kibale and Budongo.

Therefore, it is one thing to spend an hour with the chimps of Uganda or to be with them for a full day under the habituation experience. Most people do know that they can do chimpanzee tracking but rarely unaware of Chimpanzee habituation experience. Note that Chimpanzee Habituation Experience and Chimpanzee Trekking differ in terms locations, experience, duration and permit prices. Most tourists travel to Uganda for Mountain Gorilla trekking and Chimpanzee tracking plus other wildlife safaris. Uganda has got over 5,000 chimpanzees, combining those in Kibale National Park, Kyambura Gorge, Budongo Forest, Kalinzu forest or anywhere in the country. Kibale National Park has the majority share of the total chimp population in Uganda with over 1500 Chimpanzees.

Many visitors who choose to do safaris in Uganda do commonly trek chimps and mountain gorillas for one hour. There is however an option for being with such primates for a day long in the jungles of Budongo or Kibale National Park. Chimpanzee Habituation Experience is not for the fearful but for the brave ones as it runs for more hours. To go for habituation, you wake up early, have breakfast, meet your guide and then you are off into the forest to face your hosts, the chimpanzees. You will go to where they would have built nests a night before so that you meet them as they rise from their sleep.

The Habituation Experience with chimps means having them get used to human presence. This habituation process takes up to two years and by the time you visit, you are by yourself part of that process with your presence in the forest. In the previous years, chances of seeing chimpanzees in the wild were 20% as they were not well familiarised with humans. But at present, the possibilities of spotting chimps have increased to over 90% as a result of repeated habituation campaign in the park.

As you habituate chimpanzees, your camera will fill up with quality pictures of the primates since you get to study them closely. You identify them as individuals by their marks, at times scars or other distinctive features that make them stand out of the rest. The day closes as the chimps climb into their nests for the evening and you the visitors also return to the lodge.

When is it best to do Chimpanzee Habituation Experience?

The Chimpanzee habituation experience is best done and enjoyed in the months of March, April, May and November when the parks have fewer tourists. For instance when one is in a small group of four people with a ranger, he/she gets much closer to the chimps unlike during high season when the tracking clusters are larger. The adventure costs $220 for foreign non-residents, $150 for foreign residents and $70 for East Africans.

Habituation is vital in researching about primates in Uganda in the wild. Mike Wilson, a Former director of research shares his views based on his work while at the Jane Goodall Institute at Gombe in Tanzania.”When I was 5 or 6 years old, I saw Dian Fossey on TV, sitting in thick vegetation with a group of mountain gorillas. It amazed and delighted me that a person could sit so calmly with such magnificent wild creatures. That image motivated me to become a primatologist,” Wilson recalled.How is it possible for gorillas and other primates to allow scientists sit with them or follow them around while recording details of their lives? The answer is “Habituation.” It is an important and basic applied for studying primates and other wild animals.

Chimpanzee habituation experience (CHEX) is a more friendly and comprehensive version of chimpanzee trekking. This activity sanctions one to go with researchers and habituates in the national park as they follow chimps during their (chimpanzees’) daily doings, in that way having them get acquainted to human presence without changing their natural conduct.

This is a daylong activity and tourists who come early may be in position to see the spectacular sights of chimps de-nesting, feeding, copulating, breastfeeding, hunting, resting, patrolling and displaying up to when they put up new nests and retire for the night in the following evening.

Advance booking for this activity is essential.

It is always advisable to book chimpanzee habituation experience permit in time. Just like how it is with gorilla trekking in Uganda or Rwanda. Uganda is estimated to have over 5000 chimpanzees in her wilds but even though some are not habituated for viewing. This implies that some specific places can be visited for chimpanzee seeing and others not. Below are the best places to see chimpanzees in Uganda:-

• Kibale Forest National Park, the Primate Capital of the world
• Budongo Forest Reserve
• Kyambura Gorge in Queen Elizabeth National Park
• Kalinzu Forest
• Ngamba Island Chimpanzee sanctuary

Chimpanzee Safaris in Uganda

3 Days Chimpanzee habituation experience safari in Kibale

2 Days chimp trekking in Kibale forest

2 Day Kalinzu forest chimpanzee tracking 

2 Days Budongo forest chimpanzee tracking