Budongo Forest

Wildlife & Animals

Expert

Philip is the author of the Bradt guidebook to Uganda.

Budongo Forest’s main attraction is tracking a community of roughly 80 habituated chimpanzees at Kaniyo Pabidi. Your guide will take you along the forest trails to look for them. Assuming that you locate a group of chimps, you can observe them for one hour. They may be feeding in the canopy, or resting and grooming on the ground. If they’re on the move, following them can be quite an adventure.

GorillaNone

ChimpanzeeCommon

White RhinoNone

Black RhinoNone

LionVery Rare

LeopardRare

CheetahNone

HippoNone

BuffaloOccasional

ZebraNone

WildebeestNone

ElephantOccasional

GiraffeNone

Wildlife Highlights

Aside from chimpanzees, other primates that can be seen along the forest trails include black-and-white colobus, red-tailed monkey, blue monkey and olive baboon. Nocturnal primates include potto and various galago species. The rarely seen tree pangolin is also resident. Keep an eye out for the checkered elephant shrew on the forest floor and the giant forest squirrel up in the trees. You might hear tree hyrax shriek loudly at night.

Best Time for Wildlife Viewing

Chimpanzee trekking can be done throughout the year, but in recent years the success rate has been highest over April to August. In terms of weather, the best time to visit is during the drier months from December to March and June to July. After heavy rains, the trails might be difficult to walk.