Introduction
The Mubare gorilla family is one of the 21 fully habituated gorilla families in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The park is renowned for protecting half of the world’s remaining gorilla population situated in the southwestern region of the country. The Mubare gorilla family resides in the Buhoma sector with five other habituated gorilla families. These include the Habiyanja gorilla family, Muyambi gorilla family, Rushegura gorilla family, Katwe gorilla family, and Binyindo gorilla family.
The Mubare gorilla family holds the pride of being the first gorilla family to be habituated in Uganda and thus being the country’s oldest habituated gorilla family. It was first habituated in 1991 and made readily available for tracking in 1993. It received its first visitors on 13th October 1993. The Mubare gorilla family derives its name from Mubare hills where it was first sighted. This gorilla family liked foraging around these hills due to plenty of the gorilla food that was found along its slopes.
From the time this gorilla family was first habituated, it was under the leadership of a dominant silverback known as Ruhondeza who led a family of about 18 members. Ruhondeza was later overthrown by his oldest son Kanyonyi since he had become weak and unable to protect the family due to his old age. Ruhondeza was then isolated from the family and forced to live a solitary life in the nearby forest community where he later died at 50 years in June 2012. Ruhondeza was found dead in his nest where he used to stay in the nearby community and then buried by park rangers close to the UWA offices in Buhoma.
Tourists are allowed to visit his graveyard after gorilla trekking where they get to know more about his characters. He was known for his selfishness evidenced by his habit of killing newborn male mountain gorillas within the family anticipating competition from them. Kanyonyi was also later attacked by a wild silverback gorilla known as Maraya in 2017. Maraya later killed him after an intense fight. Kanyonyi wasn’t able to defend himself since he had already been weakened by an accidental fall from a tree. He sustained severe injuries like cracking his skull after this unfortunate fall. Several members of the family were forced to seek refuge in other gorilla families after his death. This left the Mubare gorilla family with only five members including Maraya the silverback as the family head.
Family members
The Mubare gorilla family is currently made up of 8 family members under the leadership of Maraya Silverback, 4 adult females and 3 infants. Members of this gorilla family include Maraya the only silverback, females include Nyampizi, Karungi, Twesiime, and Buzinza plus 3 infants. However, the number of these family members keeps on fluctuating due to a variety of factors such as new births, deaths, and also other gorillas joining and leaving other gorilla families.
Accessibility
The Mubare gorilla family is one of the gorilla families in the Buhoma gorilla sector of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park where it can be trekked. Buhoma gorilla sector can easily be accessed from Kampala or Entebbe by driving via Masaka-Mbarara and Mbarara-Kabale and connecting to Buhoma in the northern section of the Park. It is therefore a 9 hours’ drive from Kampala, 6 hours from Lake Mburo, and 2 hours from Queen Elizabeth National Park through the Ishasha sector.
Alternatively, there are scheduled chartered domestic flights that start from Entebbe International Airport or Kajjansi Airstrip to Kihiihi Airfield. Later proceed to Buhoma by road for about 1½ hours upon landing. Buhoma gorilla sector can also be accessed from Kigali, Rwanda by driving to Kabale town via Kabale-Katuna-Kigali. Then proceeding to Buhoma for about 4 hours.