What are my chances of seeing the Mountain Gorillas?

Chances of seeing the Mountain Gorillas – Wondering about your chances of seeing mountain gorillas?

This is a frequent question asked by many tourists planning to track gorillas. To many, meeting these gentle giants has been on top of their to do list while in Africa; to pause right in front of our close cousins in the thick misty jungles of Volcanoes National Park, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Virunga National Park 

Such a surreal experience brings a question to many excited to tick off this amazing outdoor adventure activity how lucky they will be to make it face to face with the world’s only remaining mountain gorillas; how sure are you that  will see them?   

The good news we have are that your chances are 90%.

Chances of seeing the Mountain Gorillas Explained

Gorillas have no permanent home or territory in the forest. They are non-ruminant vegetarians moving throughout the forest feeding on different plants like wild celery, bamboo shoots and others. Everyday, they start their day as soon as the sun rises and start feeding on the move with the whole family. Later in the evening when the sun sets, they will make nests to end their day right there throughout the night. This is their order of the day and this goes on in close monitoring of park rangers and trackers.

As early as 6am, pre-trackers head into the forest to the last GPS location of a Gorilla Family. From there, they follow the tracks left by the gorillas including their discarded food, broken branches and fallen grass. 

Gorillas don’t move very fast like chimpanzees, they actually move less than three kilometers a day. They will follow their movement trail until they find them shortly since they are just starting their day. 

When they find the gorilla family, the GPS location and other references are communicated to park Trailhead where your rangers are. Its at this moment, that the rangers will inform you whether your trek will be long, medium or short according to the information from the pre-trackers. 

Incase the family is not reachable or can’t be accessed due to different reasons, he will be informed as well by the pre trackers and no one will not be allocated to such a family.

All families are first sighted by the pre-trackers and confirm to your rangers to continues to the directions where they are as they keep communicating about their movement.

However, sometimes the family may be sighted by pre trackers quite close at the beginning of the tracking trail which means it will be easy but at the end turns difficult as they move in the direction further ahead at a higher speed that yours and at times through terrains. This makes it hard and long!

On the other hand, a family may be sighted by pre-trackers quite far away from the beginning of the trail but they walk toward your starting point. This makes the long trek turn into a short one.

All in all, nature is unpredictable but at the end of the day there will be a big smile mounted on your face to last for generations; one of the greatest wildlife encounter in Africa- Mountain Gorillas trekking