Gorilla habituation is the process by which a group of primates (or other animals) are slowly exposed to human process to the point where they regard us neutrally, while habituation and non-habituation gorillas are both considered wild. In this experience, clients will spend more time like 8 hours with mountain gorillas compared to gorilla trekking safaris which is restricted to only one hour. It’s true that gorilla trekking can take three quarters of the day but this involves trek to and from the gorillas but the actual time spent with the gorillas for observation and photography is only one hour.
With mountain gorilla habituation experience, clients will be moving with researchers/those who habituate gorillas, spend more time and see how gorillas are habituated. This experience is likely to attract more tourists since your spend more time like 8 hours compared to those interested in doing two treks.. All those interested in the habituation experience pay USD1500 per person foreign visitors, US 1000 per person foreign residents and 750,000 Uganda Shillings for the East African resident per experience. Only difference is that those going for this experience should expect to visit semi habituated mountain gorillas which can decide to hide, behave in a manner which is not usual and the experience can be stopped upon advice from researchers.
Gorilla Habituation has taken between two to three years to be completed and during this time, researchers keep on visiting an identified Wild gorilla group on a daily basis. They get to learn more about individual gorillas and the way they behave. With time, these gorillas get used to these researchers and in the long run, each individual gorilla is given a name. Once researchers are sure that these mountain gorillas can be trekked, they then introduce a mock exercise where some few people who may include scientists, journalists start visiting it. Once such a gorilla family has passed mock exercise, and it has been opened for the habituation and the there two groups Bikingi and Bushaho for the experience.
The experience takes place to the Rushaga side but experiencing the 2 groups and there several lodges like the Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge, Nkuringo Gorilla Camp, Gorilla Valley Lodge, Gorilla Safari Lodge, and Mutanda Lake Resort among others.
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has about twelve habituated gorilla families which include Mubare, Habinyanja and Rushegura in the Northern section of the park called Buhoma, then Bitukura, Oruzogo and Kyaguriro in the Eastern Part of Bwindi in Ruhija, Nshongi, Mishaya, Busingye, Bweza, Kahungye, Bikingi, Bushaho in Rushaga and then Nkuringo Gorilla Family all in the south
