Lying in the extreme southwest
corner of Uganda, 14kms from Kisoro, the tiny 33.7 square kilometre
Mgahinga National Park is Uganda’s smallest national park.
It was gazetted in 1991 to protect the mountain gorillas of the Ugandan
sector of the Virunga Volcanoes that straddle Rwanda and the D.R.C. It
forms part of the greater 434 square kilometre Virunga Conservation
Area. Of the 600 mountain gorillas left in the world, 300 are found
in the Virunga Volcanoes, whilst the other 300 are in the nearby Bwindi
National Park.
Mgahinga is a dense tropical rainforest on the lower slopes of the
volcanoes. The vegetation includes bamboo, and lots of lichens
and mosses – delicacies to a mountain gorilla. There is only
one group of mountain gorillas in Mgahinga that is habituated to humans. It is
known as the Nyakagezi group and can be visited on a gorilla track.
The park has had a turbulent history because of its proximity to Rwanda
and the D.R.C – both troubled nations during the 1990s. It has closed
on numerous occasions and the gorillas themselves were often in danger
from rebel fighting when they unwittingly wandered over borders. The seasonable availability of bamboo shoots determines the
movements of Mgahinga’s gorillas across the Uganda-D.R.C border.
This is biological behaviour of a wild species, and cannot be controlled
or predicted, despite the obvious logistical problems for the park
authorities. Remember that as a rainforest, the park is always wet.
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