Kibale national park is located in western Uganda, Kabarole district. The park is 321 km2 and its dominated by protected habitat forests. Kibale national park is Uganda s chief chimp tracking destination and the famous activity of the park is the Kanyanchu primate walk that begun in the 1993s. the kanyanchu primate walk offers over 90% chances of locating the Chimpanzees under guided walks for an average of 3 hours depending on a variety of factors. The park is biologically diverse sheltering furthermore 120 mammals and 370 bird species. The most predominant primate around Kibale are the chimpanzees with a population of over 1500 individuals.
The closest town to Kibale National Park is Fort Portal and from Kampala, the town can be accessed through two routes that is Via Kampala-Fort Portal Highway a fully tarmacked 326 km road. The drive takes about 6 hours. The second route is via Kampala-Masaka-Mbarara road. This is a quite a long-distance safari however it is affiliated with optional stopovers at lake Mburo national Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Activities at the park
Chimpanzee Habituation Experience
Tourists at Kibale join the habituation research teams in Kibale in carrying out their daily assessments of making the chimp communities used to humans. This is the most popular activity at the park as it a times goes hand in hand with chimp trekking. During the habituation experience, tourist spend much longer time with the chimps under guidance of expert guides. This offers greater chances for photographers and researcher who would love to spend much time and take image with chimpanzees. This activity as well starts with briefings at the headquarters at 08:00 and usually carried in groups of at most 6 individuals.
Chimpanzee trekking.
Chimpanzee tracking sits second in the famous ventures at Kibale preferably the best destination for chimp trekking on the globe. At Kibale chances are highly escalated to 95% for trekker to locate the chimps. There are intervals provided to visitor that the morning trek or afternoon trek. These commence at the park’s headquarters with briefings and a maximum of 8 trekking permits are issued out a day in groups of 6 individuals and take an average of 2-5 hours depending on the various factors.
Birding
This is best done under guided forest walks giving visitors an opportunity to spot the varies bird species I the tropical forest at the park. Kibale national park has about 370 bird species including the rare green breasted pitta. Other species include the African pitta, Great blue turaco, Black faced Apails among others.
Natural walks.
The forest walks at kibale are categorized into day and night forest hikes usually limited to 8 visitors every hike. The walks take place within the 12 km trail within the forests at kibale national park providing greater opportunities for visitors to explore the various mammals in the park. Kibale has over 120 species pf mammal including the nocturnal, spotted Hynes, Forest elephants, African Buffalo. There are also some reptiles such as snakes and many more.