Mgahinga Gorilla National Park
Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is located in the Virunga Mountains and contains three dormant volcanoes, i.e. Mount Muhabura, Mount Gahinga, and Mount Sabyinyo. In altitude, the national park goes from 2,227 to 4,127 m (7,306 to 13,540 ft) and is part of the Nile River watershed area. It is bordering with Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and the southern sector of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is about 15 kilometers by road south of the town of Kisoro and around 55 kilometers by road west of Kabale, the largest city in the sub-region.
Mgahinga Gorilla National Park was founded in 1991 in a place that used to be a game reserve between the 1930s and 1950 but was partially corrected to crop areas at lower heights. Biological surveys were created in 1989, wire snares destroyed, rangers trained, and trees planted. Settlers migrated to areas outside the national park’s borders in the early 1990s. Mgahinga Gorilla National Park contains bamboo forests, Albertine Rift montane forests, Ruwenzori-Virunga montane moorlands with tree heath, and an alpine zone at higher altitudes.
Primates in the national park include mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) with approximately 30 individuals bust between one habituated and two unhabituated groups, and golden monkey (Cercopithecus kandti), an Albertine Rift Endemic whose capacity is now limited to the Virungas and one different forest in Rwanda. The list of 76 animal species includes black-and-white colobus, leopard, African bush elephant, giant forest hog, bushpig, buffalo, Cape bushbuck, black-fronted duiker, and several rodents, bats, and small predators.
Of the Albertine Rift’s endemic birds, the following were registered in the national park during surveys in 2004; handsome spurfowl, dusky crimson-wing, red-throated lathe, Kivu ground thrush, Rwenzori turaco, Rwenzori batis, Rwenzori double-collared sunbird, collared apalis, mountain masked apalis, Archer’s ground robin, stripe-breasted tit, blue-headed sunbird, regal sunbird, strange weaver, montane nightjar, red-faced woodland warbler and Grauer’s swamp warbler.
Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is Uganda’s smallest national park, obtaining one of the rarest annual guest numbers of any national park in Uganda. Famous tourist activities include mountain gorilla tracking, golden monkey tracking, volcano hiking, nature walks to the gorge, bird watching, and meeting the Batwa community. Travelers visiting Mgahinga Gorilla National Park make a 9-hour drive from Kampala City to the park. The park is even connected by everyday domestic flights from Entebbe International Airport and to Kihihi Airstrip.
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