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Uganda to prepare more mountain gorillas for contact with humans
Uganda's Wildlife Authority is planning to expose two more groups of rare mountain gorillas to human contact, paving the way for more visits to the country's most lucrative tourist attraction.

Uganda's legendary mountain gorillas - renowned for the shimmering silver hair adorning the backs of their males - draw thousands of tourists each year, many of them high-end travellers paying $500 a visit plus hefty prices at safari lodges.

The gorillas are found only in the dense forests straddling the borders where Uganda meets Rwanda and eastern Congo. With fewer than 750 mountain gorillas left, they are one of the world's most endangered species.

The Wildlife Authority has accustomed four social groups of six to seven gorillas each in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to human contact, meaning they do not lash out or run away. Rangers and primatologists spent progressively more time close to the gorillas each day.

"We plan to start habituating two more groups (in Bwindi) soon, but it will probably take two years before they will be ready to take visits from tourists," Sam Mwanda, the Wildlife Authority's deputy director, said Tuesday in Kampala, the country's capital. Another reserve has one accustomed group.

The Wildlife Authority says each group can receive only eight tourists per day - any more stresses the gorillas out and puts them at greater risk of catching potentially lethal diseases.

In July, the government put up the price of a gorilla visiting permit to $500 per day, but there is still a waiting list.

Mwanda said tourist dollars had funded conservation efforts that have boosted the region's gorilla population from 650 in the mid-1990s to 750 - a rare recovery for a species with so few individuals.

Tourism and coffee are Uganda's top earners.

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