Over the long Easter weekend, I went to Western Uganda with a few friends. We spent the first couple days in Kibale Forest National Park, the park with the highest concentration of primates in East Africa. The park has around 1500 chimps, of which there are 3 groups of about 100 chimps each that are habituated to humans. We got to spend a whole day following around chimps in one of the families - it was amazing watching a little chimp drama unfold over the course of the day. We hiked for over an hour to find the chimps in the forest, and as we got to them, one of the female chimps was screaming in a very alarming way. Our guide told us the female was screaming because she was in her fertile period (oestrus) and was being harassed by some of the male chimps. She came about 4 feet away from us because she knew that if she was near humans, the other chimps wouldn't bother her.
We followed the chimps around as they ate, mated (female chimps during their fertile period will mate with up to 10 males per day!), climbed in the trees, and rested.
We followed this guy around for about 45 minutes - it was pretty wild just being able to watch him as he went about his day. Chimpanzees in the wild are afraid of humans, but the Uganda Wildlife Authority habituates groups of them over time to become used to humans so researchers can study them and bring tourists to see them. Tourism is a major source of revenue for the communities around the forest, which helps the conservation effort as these communities are less likely to then harm the forest.
The forest was beautiful on its own as well - I have never seen more butterflies or such an incredible variety of butterflies. The birds were also spectacular.
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