Kibale Forest National Park Uganda | Primates Paradise – Chimpanzee Trekking Park

Kibale Forest National Park is located in western Uganda just about 5 hours away from Kampala city and just about 26km from Fort Portal town. It gets its name from the Kibale forest, a tropical forest that occupied a reasonable part of this park while the smallest part is a wetland. It is one of parks with abundant tourism attractions especially primates species and also a great place for bird watching.

Kibale Forest National Park Location

To get to Kibale forest, you can use either that Kampala- Mubende- Fort portal or go through the Kampala-Mbarara- Kasese and then head to Fort portal which is a longer journey compared to the former.

This park is blessed with various types of vegetation cover and most of the parts are covered with patches of grasslands, the forest and wetlands especially along the north and central parts of the Kibale national park.  Kibale forest is blessed with amazing flora and fauna with so many ancient trees that grow up to a high of 55m.

Adventures in Kibale Forest National Park

Serene Wildlife

Kibale Forest National Park is a great tourism destination as it is a great sanctuary for various wildlife species. This park is a home to more than 70 wildlife species including 13 primate species like chimpanzees, black and white colobus monkeys, the red tailed monkeys, there are L’Hoest, the Olive Baboons, blue monkeys, the grey cheeked mangabeys, and there are  nocturnal primates those tiny pottos, bush babies and many more.  The existence of these amazing primates makes this place an amazing primate watching destination and you can also enjoy a chimpanzee habituation adventure from this park.

Wildlife species living in this national park include elephants, there are African golden cats, a number of warthogs and sometime buffaloes, red and blue duikers, giant forest hogs, bush pigs and bushbucks as well as leopard(s) are spotted. The famous sitatungas antelopes are sometimes seen around the Bigodi wetland. Sometimes mongooses and otters are seen roaming around.

Kibale is also a home to over 250 different buffer fly species and a few reptile species as well as amphibians.

Bird-Life

Kibale Forest National Park has more than 375 different bird species and this makes it one of the best birding sites in the country. Kibale forest is the best place for anyone interested in bird watching to visit because if you are very keen, you can easily see more than half the total population. Most of these birds are endemic to the Kibale forest while a number of others are migrants that they come in and later fly out when the season ends.

Best time to visit Kibale Forest National Park

You can visit Kibale forest any time of the year because any time is a good time.  Both the rainy and the hot season come with the positive and negative impacts for example, chimpanzee trekking and habituation as well as nature walks tend to be difficult as the ground is slippery but again during the dry season, such activities become tiresome as you have to walk longer distance before you can meet these animals. They tend to move to higher latitudes where there can find fresh green and fruits to feed.

Accommodation in Kibale Forest National Park

Kibale forest is surrounded by very many accommodation facilities and the choice is always yours depending on your budget. These different accommodation facilities range from the luxury hotels for the big spenders like Kyaninga safari lodge, Primates lodge, Kibale safari lodge, Ndali safari lodge

There are also the midrange accommodations hotels which includes hotels like Crater safari lodge, Mountains of the moon hotel

And those on a very tight budget can use hotels like Attaco cottages, Rwenzori view guest house, Chimpanzee guest house, among so many others within the areas and in Fort portal town.

To engage in activities like chimpanzee trekking or a whole day habituation, prior booking has to be made at the Uganda wildlife authority head office in Kampala and they will offer you a permit which has to be presented at the park headquarter to the tracking date just before the trek starts at 8 am. Both activities have a maximum number of people that are allowed to visit every family per day and the restrictions are in place to prevent cases of habitat degradation and may be risks of human- chimpanzee spread of diseases and the reverse is true. You can be sure that your visit o Kibale Forest National Park will be a memorable one.