Ngamba Island
Ngamba Island is full of mysteries that you might not believe until you visit the ground. Ngamba Island is located in Lake Victoria, it is an isolated island within the water, and this makes it perfect for the purposes that led to its initiation. The Island is a sanctuary for the rescued chimpanzees from the poachers, traders, and abandoned, among others. The Island was established in 1993 with the aim of reducing the rampant poaching of chimpanzees plus providing a safe haven for the traumatized chimpanzees from different parts of Uganda like Budongo forest and Kibale forest National Park among other places.
This safe even for human’s closest friend, the chimpanzees, is located in about 23km away, south east of Entebbe town. Ngamba Island is a sanctuary for the protection of the endangered chimpanzees in Uganda, situated in Lake Victoria; it is also called the chimp island. Ngamba Chimpanzee Island or sanctuary is a home for over 45 chimpanzees that are orphaned, rescued plus abandoned by the poachers. The Island is divided two section; one if confined to the humans who take care of the chimps, it’s about 40 hectares and the rest of the island is left for the chimpanzees to wander freely in order to regain back from the trauma.
The Island is one of the projects for the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust (CSWCT). Officially, Ngamba Island was established in 1997 to help rehabilitate the traumatized chimpanzees which cannot immediately be transferred back to the wild. The chimpanzees which are taken to Ngamba Island, they are first educated and trained back to normal. Ngamba chimpanzee sanctuary is an opportunity for you to get educated and learn how to appreciate the importance of conserving the chimpanzees plus the natural environment in which the wildlife lives.
there is a strong proof about the bad effect of human intervention with wildlife; the different dark stories behind each chimpanzee face at the Island proves how bad the humans are to wildlife and the grade at which the humans stand in the violation of the environmental fidelity rule. The good news is, Ngamba Island stands tall to defend the rights of the chimpanzees and also to show the human community the need to conserve nature and the wildlife.
What to do at Ngamba Island
The main reason for the establishment of the Island was to create a place for the protection of the endangered chimpanzees in Uganda. Therefore, the main activity for you to do at Ngamba Island is watching the chimpanzees. The chimpanzee activity at Ngamba Island is somehow different from the usual chimpanzee trekking in Kibale National Park, Kyambura and the other places where primate safaris are conducted in Uganda. At Ngamba Island, you will enjoy chimpanzee watching instead; The Island is mainly for the traveler who loves to spend some time with the chimpanzees.
Something unique about the chimpanzees at Ngamba Island is they are all habituated to visitors and human interactions. Therefore, you will spend the most favorable time with the chimpanzees at Ngamba Island than trekking them in the forest. There is a raised platform at Ngamba Island where the different visitors stand to watch the chimpanzees below as they rioter around, do summersaults, and play around. The platform helps the chimpanzees from contracting human ailments such as flue among others. Watching the chimpanzees from this platform is also for your safety; some chimpanzees are just new from the trauma, therefore, they might be violent to humans.
Something else for you to enjoy at the Island is infant chimpanzee integration program. The life of the chimpanzees at Ngamba Island is a one community living. Therefore, the new members of the family need to be initiated and oriented into the system. There are different methods that the keepers use in order to integrate the new chimpanzees into one community. You can enjoy one of the integration sessions for the new chimpanzees. However, this does not happen overnight, the time at which the chimpanzees are integrated into the community at the Island is dependent on different factors such as age, sex, level of trauma among others.
Ngamba Island is a good place for nature walks through the forest, however, this is mainly offered to the travellers who are going to stay at an island or more than two days. The guests are offered an opportunity to venture into the natural forest on the island; you can enjoy the morning forest walk where you get a chance to meet some of the juvenile chimpanzees of the island. The juvenile chimps are more like human children according to the way they play around the visitors with an intention of attracting attention. The forest walk is a chance for you to physically get in touch with the chimpanzees that seeing them from the raised visitor platform. The forest walks on Ngamba Island last for just one hour and only allowed by a maximum of 4 people, despite, the time is worthy after all.
Being a caregiver to the chimpanzee is another interesting activity for you to do during your visit to Ngamba Island. The caregiving program is something unique for you, it gives you the chance to get enough time and experience a day with the chimpanzees as their caregiver. However, this is not you full work for the day; you will only give assistance to the caregivers at Ngamba Island to do certain duties like preparing the food for the chimpanzees, assisting in feeding the chimpanzees and watching them as they feed so that you can track their feeding patterns among others. The other activities you can get involved in when you are a caretaker at the Island include, giving the medical checkups for the chimpanzees, research and monitoring of the different chimpanzee patterns, preparation of the holding area for the chimps among other administration work. Recording the different transformation of the chimpanzees is very catching and interesting to be a one day caregiver at the Island.
The chimpanzee caregiving program is only done by the visitors who stay at Ngamba Island for more than one day. The day as a chimpanzee caregiver will give you an insight on what it takes to care for the chimpanzee orphans, thus understanding and learning how to appreciate the work done here. It is also something done in order to raise the funds required to carry on the Island project. Actually, being a caregiver of the chimpanzees at Ngamba Island is not comparable to any other primate package in Uganda; it gives you chance to meet, physically, and interact with the chimpanzees on the island. Always remember to add Ngamba Island visit on your travel itinerary for Uganda safari. You can choose to visit Ngamba Island any time of the year and enjoy the chimpanzees at a more intimate level.
