Kibale stretches as far as the eyes can see, looking like a never-ending green area. It covers 795 square kilometers filled with different types of tropical forest, home to over 351 tree species. Some trees grow as high as 55 meters and are said to be over 200 years old.
The park lies on gently sloping land standing at 1,590 meters above sea level, with the lowest point being 1,100 meters on the floor of the Albertine Rift Valley in the south.
This area supports different types of habitats such as wet tropical forest on the Fort Portal plateau, woodland, and savanna on the rift valley floor, making it a good place for researchers.
The capital of primates is mixed with patches of grassland and swamp. It is home to over 70 mammals and 13 species of primates, including chimpanzees and monkeys. This attracts many people from different parts of the world to come for trekking, which starts either in the morning or afternoon after a short briefing on what you should and should not do.
Over 375 bird species live in the park due to the large and comfortable space, making it a good place for birding and a dream for bird lovers. Some of the bird species include olive long-tailed cuckoo, western tinkerbird, grey parrot, and the ground thrush, which is only found in Kibale.
Kibale also joins Queen Elizabeth National Park in the south, creating a 180-kilometer-long corridor known for having many wild animals. Kibale was first gazetted in 1932 and later became a national park in 1993 to protect a large forest area that was earlier used as a forest reserve.
Reports say that a large number of people had once lived on the land using poor farming methods. To protect the park’s wildlife, people were moved to Kibaale District, creating space for wild animals and plants to live and grow well.
The park is lucky to be close to the Batooro and the Bakiga people, who use the park as a source of food, firewood, and sometimes jobs provided through the Uganda Wildlife Authority, helping to improve their way of life.
This is one of the reasons why the number of people living around the park had increased, but the government worked on that, and now anyone found cutting down trees illegally is taken to jail.
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