Good evening

Just wondering why there are so few posts, and/or responses to posts, regarding Gorilla Trekking in Uganda's Bwindi NP (or even Rwanda's Volcanoes NP) since 2018?

Has Gorilla Trekking and/or Gorilla Habituation in Uganda/Rwanda been knocked as a safari destination in the past 1-3 years?

I know Rwanda VNP ($1500pp) and Uganda's Bwindi ($700pp) both raised their permit costs for 1hr Gorilla Trekking and Uganda Bwindi raised its' Gorilla Habituation permit cost to $1500pp.

Putting the cost increases aside, have there been any other major issues to recently hit Uganda's Bwindi NP Gorilla Trekking program?

Thank you!

Perhaps you don’t see many posts because so few people are able to visit mountain gorillas, and it has nothing to do with the permit cost. I have tracked gorillas in Rwanda but not Uganda. The number of visitors allowed to see mountain gorillas is strictly limited in order to protect these endangered animals from extinction. There are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the world, all in the tri-border region of Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC.

Visitors are limited to 8 at a time for each habituated group, which can be visited only once per day. You are allowed a maximum time of one hour with the group. Obviously that limits the number of people who see the gorillas to dozens rather than hundreds or thousands.

Safaris to see the “big five” don’t have those restrictions, and animals are harassed by the sheer numbers of visitors in some game parks. Guides and drivers are pressured to give their clients the best sightings, and I have seen several safari vehicles circling one lion or cheetah, in some cases the animal frightened away from its kill.

I think generally speaking the Fodors safarigoers aren't as intrepid as on other forums and are less likely to take on a trip like this for various reasons (health, age, budget). I think if you visited the Safaritalk.net forum or even the Trip Advisor forums for those countries, you would find more people who have visited both, and continue to do so, but still not in the same numbers as people who do photographic safari in say, Kenya or Tanzania.