Ngamba Island Chimpanzee sanctuary is without doubt the only chimpanzee sanctuary in the world.
It is found on one of Lake Victoria’s islands called Ngamba, it is about 23km off Kampala to Entebbe and almost an hour by a speed boat from mainland. Surrounded by the nitro and amazing waters of the beautiful Lake Victoria, Ngamba Island Chimpanzee sanctuary is habitat to more than 48 orphaned chimps around East Africa all protected by the (Chimpanzee Trust) combined with NGO who both work hand in hand to involve their selves in protecting these beautiful creatures through field and community conservation with help of the government of Uganda and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).
ACTIVITIES IN NGAMBA ISLAND
Ngamba Island rewards travelers with beautiful sightings of the most and amazing human close brothers and sisters, (chimps) with almost 98.7% DNA Chimpanzees are the closest relatives to humans which makes them amazing to interact with!
When at Ngamba, the star attraction are the Chimpanzees, tourists get into contact with these beautiful great apes while feeding them either very early in the morning or in the evening as they sit and enjoy the vegetables. Other activities that can be done at Ngamba is mainly done inside the sanctuary,somethings like, cleaning the cages, helping in medical procedures, preparing chimp food, bird watching,visting a neighboring fishing village etc.
One to remember is that Ngamba is founded in 1998, in addition to that, packed lunch and drinks are not allowed on the island due to hard of controlling litter and some other things associated with personal items.
INTERESTING NEWS
Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary Gets a New Leader
During the covid-19 pandemic, Ngamba island chimp site gets a new leader called KISEMBO. Kisembo took a long time eyeing the position of the Alpha male chimp at the sanctuary since 2010 during the time of chimp Mika.
The leadership in Chimps like some humans also varies from one individual to another and it’s not chosen by neither being strong nor powerful or young or old but mainly from the support one can have in the community.
When Chimp Mika died in 2013 it caused a power vacuum in the community to demoralize, which led to the raise of the competition by 4 different males in run to the position in leadership such as: Umutama, Kalema, Kisembo and Oketch. After too much competitive race the community decided to raise Umutama as their new leader who they saw as the problem solver in the community, and this was 2015.
By the end of 2019, Ngamba Chimpanzees new head Kisembo started a campaign which led to overthrow Umutama from the heading seat, the whole campaign started from when most males and females started to welcome him back to the holding facilities which rises his courage and confidence though he faced serious trouble by other opposing males such as Oketch, Kalema and Umutama, while in all this period Kisembo was taking his time in studying all their weaknesses and negativity.
KISEMBO is such a determined leader though he’s quit and peaceful, during feeding whenever someone denied getting food, Kisembo hoots with a tonic sound and everyone runs away before he comes on!
They continued trying to push him out but later they accepted a defeat and gave up and started to bob for him.