Mucunguzi gorilla family is one of the famous gorilla families to find on your gorilla trekking safari in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The family can be found in Rushaga sector, this is on the southern side of Bwindi impenetrable forest.
Recently the Mucunguzi gorilla family welcomed a new baby born by an adult female named ‘Ndinkahe’. So, Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) confirmed the news of the new born that joined the family. The mother of the new baby born is 16 years old is believed to have joined the group from a wild family.
The group takes its name from the head silverback ‘Mucunguzi’. The family is now composed of 12 individuals.
Bwindi forest is popularly known for gorilla trekking in Uganda yet the Rushaga section is also known for the special gorilla habituation experience. During this experience tourists are allowed to meet and interact with the mountain gorillas for up to 4 hrs as opposed to 1 hour on the regular gorilla trekking tour.
Other gorilla families in Bwindi besides Mucunguzi:-
Bitukura Gorilla Family
Bitukura Gorilla family lives in the eastern Ruhija sector of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. It is one of the most exciting families for your gorilla trekking safari in Bwindi forest. It is one of the more recently habituated gorilla groups within Bwindi, making it one of the most visited gorilla groups, currently.
Though many visitors prefer to sleep in the northern Buhoma section, they travel early in the morning to track this group since it is less than 2 hour distance drive to the Ruhija sector.
The naming of this group was as a result of them being sighted for the first time near river Bitukura, to which they happened to be foraging. As a result they were given to share the same name as the river, ‘Bitukura’. This later turned to be their feeding range thus giving birth to the name of this group.
Oruzogo family
Oruzogo Gorilla family can also be found in the Ruhija section. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, is one of the biggest parks in Africa inhabiting the largest number of the mountain gorillas.
The Oruzogo gorilla family was open up to tourism in 2011 and started receiving visitors before the end of that year. With more than with 22 members including 2 silverbacks, this group is one of the highly tracked groups in the Ruhija sector of Bwindi.
The group is large and one of the 2 silverbacks, ‘Tibirikwata’, is the leader of the family. Other leaders in the group include Kaganga (giant one), Bwoba (coward) and Busungu (short tempted).
The females in the group including ‘Ntamurungi’, who gave birth in June 2011 and Musi who gave birth in October 2011. The increase in the number of members in the group is due to high birth ratio among the group.