Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla (video)
Some day I will be the boss! On a recent visit to East Africa we spent two beautiful days tracking Mountain Gorillas in the Bwindi National Park in southern Uganda. The Bwindi is home to about half of the world's total population of approximately 750 wild mountain gorillas. Several family units have been habituated to tolerate the brief presence of humans to enable park trackers to to take wildlife enthusiasts into the forest for brief 1 hour encounters. This is an important source of revenue for the local community and encourages the importance of conservation of forest and these amazing and rare creatures. Typical tracking experiences can take between 1 to 8 hours of bushwhacking to locate the troop. There are no guarantees but most trekkers are rewarded with sightings. It can be pretty tough going especially if it is raining which happens frequently. After all it is a rainforest in the mountains on the equator! Our group of 6 plus rangers and local trackers found gorillas in reasonably clear forest, in less than two hours hiking and were allowed 1 hour to watch natural gorilla behavior from distances of about 20 feet away. We were also lucky....see what you think.
Discovery time for the Baby Gorilla
Happy times
Hanging around
Sister loves the baby
Silverback rests in the forest
Hanging out with Dad
Hands