Duration: | 1 Day(s) - 0 Night(s) |
Tour Category: | Full Day Tours |
CHIMPANZEE TREKS IN VIRUNGA / TONGO FOREST
The day begins when Community Trackers leave their camp at 3:00 AM, enter the forest at 4:00 AM, and await the first chimp calls. Having heard and located the chimps, they remain with them until 7:00 AM when their precise location is communicated over the radio to the Virunga National Park guide. Leading the group of 4-6 tourists is one guide and one ranger. The tourists remain with the chimps for up to one hour.
More About Virunga National Park:
Virunga National Park is Africa’s most biodiverse protected area, home to over one thousand species of mammal, birds, reptiles, and amphibians as well as 1/3 of the world’s endangered mountain gorillas. Located on the eastern edge of the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, Virunga has become known as the park of fire and ice for its diverse habitats ranging from the Rwenzori peaks to savanna and volcanic plains.
Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage site, Virunga is constantly threatened by war, poaching, and illegal activities as well as unpreventable natural disasters.
Virunga National Park is the only protected area on Earth home to three taxa of great apes: the mountain gorilla, the eastern lowland gorilla, and the eastern chimpanzee. Park rangers and staff strive to provide conditions that support the growth of their populations, which are threatened by conflict, habitat loss, and poaching, leaving them in danger of extinction.
The endangered chimpanzee, one of five species of great ape, inhabits the tropical savannas and forests of central and west Africa. It is threatened by the activities of another great ape, one of its closest relatives in the animal kingdom, with whom it shares 98.7% of its DNA – humans.
Wild chimpanzees live in "communities" of between twenty and 150 individuals, organized in complicated social hierarchies. Grooming rituals used to remove ticks and maintain cleanliness, help to strengthen social bonds between group members. Half of the individuals remain with their community for life, while the female half tend to migrate between groups.