One of the most stunning parks in Uganda considered to be the Primate Capital of the World.

Kibale National Park is best known for its 13-specie primate population, which includes more than 1400 Chimpanzees, Red Colobus monkey, the uncommon L’Hoest’s monkey, the Ugandan Mangabey, or Grey-cheeked Mangabey, the Black and While Colobus Monkey, Blue Monkey, Red-tailed monkey, Bushbaby and the Potto. The Park is 795 square kilometers in size and is mainly composed of a true African Rainforest; which allows visitors to see primates swinging in the trees, as well as over 300 bird species, elephants, buffaloes, giant forest hogs and numerous antelope species.

This 180 km-long migration corridor for wildlife is one of the most stunning parks in Uganda. It is considered the Primate Capital of the World. The park is situated in the heart of the Tooro Kingdom in western Uganda, near For Portal. The park lies close to the tranquil Ndali-Kasenda crater area and is within a half day’s drive of Queen Elizabeth, Rwenzori Mountains and Semiliki National Parks.

Researchers and habituators can be found in the forest carrying out their daily activities; their main focus is on the Chimpanzees and specifically allowing humans to interact with them without altering their natural behavior. The Chimpanzee Habituation Experience and visitors are invited to participate; this will enable the visitor to view the nesting in the early morning, feeding, copulating, hunting, breast feeding, resting, patrolling and displaying and finally building their new nests and retiring for the night. Advance booking is necessary to participate in the chimp habituation activity.

For a less intense Chimpanzee experience, one can participate in a Chimpanzee Tracking Walk, which takes 2 to 3 hours. The park guides start walking from the Kanyanchu Visitor Center at 8 am every day and escort up to 6 visitors at a time. Advance booking is necessary to participate in the Primate Walk.

Also from the Kanyanchu Tourist Center, there are daily nature walks that also last 2 to 3 hours; exploration of the park’s diverse habitats is provided on these walks, allowing visitors to get very close to nature. Bird watching and Night Nature Walks are also regular activities; with almost 400 bird species, there is a tremendous amount to see including many nocturnal species such as bats, owls, Pottos, bush babies, Civets, genet cats and Eastern needle nailed.

As the age limit to enter the forest is 12, Kibale National Park has organized a variety of activities especially for children, including educational forest walks of 1 to 2 hours, pond dipping, cyantotype photography and batik making. Teaching the ecosystem and its inhabitants is the main focus of these children’s nature walks. The trained Ranger Guides that conduct these children’s walks allow the parents to enjoy their forest walks knowing that their children are safely entertained and in a learning environment.

Access to Kibale National Park can be achieved from 3 vantage points. From Kampala, one can enter via Kasese or via Mubende and Fort Portal; from Mbarara and Kamwenge there is yet a third entrance to the west.

Around the park, one can enjoy other activities, most of which are organized by the community. Taking a community guided walk in the Bigodi swamp is always awarding for those who love birds and nature. You can have a 2 hours swamp walk while birding and spotting other primates which live around the communities. Some of the birds among the 138 species in the bigodi wetland sanctuary include waxbills, weavers, hornbills, papyrus gonoleks, kingfishers, turracos and flycatchers among others while primates include red colubus monkey, olive baboon, black and white colubus monkey, red tailed monkey, vervet monkey among others.

Most tourists visit this sector because of the tree climbing lions. Something unique about these lions is that they spend most of their time up in the tree especially the fig tree. There are so many theories relating to why these lions have adapted so much to climbing, some believe that they do climb the trees running away from the tsetse flies, others believe that they do climb the trees to look for cooler places as the grounder is hotter during the scotching sunshine, and as a natural theory, most predators do climb trees or look for a higher elevation point to improve their sight of prey such as kobs and topis among others.