Location
The Budongo Forest in Uganda is northwest of the capital city Kampala on the way to Murchison Falls National Park and is located on the escarpment northeast of Lake Albert. It is known for its former abundance of East African mahogany trees as well as being home to a population of chimpanzees. An exceptionally large mahogany tree is still found here and is more than 80 meters tall and some 20 meters in circumference.
Wildlife
Recorded from Budongo are more than 360 bird species, some 290 butterflies, 130 moths, 465 trees, and 24 mammals, of which 9 are primates. Chimpanzee tracking has become an activity popular with eco-tourists, necessitating behavioral guidelines for visitors in order to avoid undue disturbance of both animals and forest. Trails have been cut crisscrossing the forest, initially to ease access for research workers and since then used by eco-tourists, forest animals and poachers.
Wildlife Research
Vernon Reynolds first studied chimpanzees in this forest in 1962, writing a book about the forest and its chimpanzees in 1965. He was one of a trio of pioneer field researchers – the others being Jane Goodall and Adriaan Kortlandt. During the 1970s and 1980s, civil war raged in the country, with an accompanying breakdown of law and order. Chimpanzee mothers were shot and the infants taken from the forest and smuggled to collectors in Asia, Europe and America. Reynolds returned to Uganda in 1990 to determine whether a viable population of chimpanzees still existed in Budongo. By 1995 some fifty individuals had been identified, and this figure remained constant until 2000 when the numbers started rising, thought to be due to an influx of chimpanzees from other areas.
TOUR UGANDA 