The Entebbe Wildlife Preserve

After the National Botanical Gardens and a failed attempt at lunch, we headed over to Entebbe's wildlife preserve. Often mistakenly described as a zoo, the site is used to house and care for animals that are rescued from poachers or markets and are unable to live in the wild.

Entrance fees are going up -- in November they rise to 20,000 shillings (about $10) for non-resident foreigners. Not a lot by western standards, but a ton of money here (the entrance fee for the botanical garden was 1000 shillings). We got the resident foreigner rate of 10,000, and I paid another 5000 shillings to bring in a camera. They tried to give us a guide, but I've watched enough Animal Planet and National Geographic that I didn't think we needed one. I was totally right.

Anyway, it's surprisingly modern. I guess I was expecting something like the botanical gardens or the Phnom Tamao animal sanctuary in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, just a bunch of pens with animals in them, but it was definitely several steps up. There were reasonably sized pens for each animal, good barricades separating them from us and from each other, large maps near the entrance, and signposts that told us where each animal was.

Also right at the entrance was a little fenced-off grass area with deer and antelope (n.b.: this is where they play). There were also some funky-looking cranes and some other odd birds, though I couldn't tell if they were legitimate preserved birds or if they had just sort of wandered over. I thought the cranes were full members, but sometimes they left their enclosure and walked around on the path. Like the peacocks in the Bronx Zoo.

We first went to a little classroom area -- an open-air pavilion with a whiteboard and a bunch of seats. There were a lot of plants arranged all around it with little signs saying what diseases each plant could cure, but we ignored that and made for the big shiny thing -- some sort of solar water heater. The water was steaming, but I doubt it could boil unless the sun were really really strong that day. Anyway, after determining that it was not an animal, we moved on. There was a forest walk, but that didn't sound lionriffic so we skipped it.

Next we found a row of cages with various little guys in it. We spent the most time in front of these. Until recently I didn't know the difference between monkeys and baboons and so forth. After seeing all these guys, I spent some time on Wikipedia and sorted it all out. Here's what I found:

All the little furry guys are primates. They're notable for adaptations to live in trees, opposable thumbs, late maturity, long lifespan, and reliance on vision instead of smell. Primate is a broad group that comprises prosimians and simians. Prosimians (like lemurs and lorises) are the most primitive primates.

The other group, simians, includes most of the guys we think of as primates. Simians are divided into monkeys and apes. Apes are easy: There are two families -- lesser apes, which are just gibbons, and great apes. Great apes are large, have mobile shoulders (good for climbing), 8-9 month gestation periods, long adolescence, no tails, are omnivores, and have exceptional problem-solving ability (cf. zebra). They do well standing on two feet. Great apes include humans, chimpanzees (bonobo and original flavor), gorillas, and orangutans.

"Monkey" doesn't mean much on its own. It's divided into New World monkeys and Old World monkeys. New World monkeys are small, have flat noses with sideways-pointing nostrils, and have prehensile tails. Old World monkeys, which are closer to apes than to New World monkeys, have downward-pointing nostrils and their tails aren't prehensile.

So then Old World monkey includes all sorts of things, like macaques and colobus and vervet and mandrill and langur, but I think that's enough narrowing down of simians for me.

OK, so that guy above. He's not a human, a chimp, a gorilla, or an orangutan, so he's not a great ape. He's not a gibbon, so he's not a lesser ape. So we know he's a monkey of some kind. Thin nose with downward-facing nostrils, so he's an Old World monkey. After matching photos for a bit, I guess that he's a green monkey, native to West Africa.

Anyway, across from the possible green monkey was a lion cage, but he was asleep. We decided not to wake him because of the potential for angry lion.

Next to the likely green monkey were a pair of Nile fisher eagles. We thought it was mean to put them in a cage, but it turned out that they were rescued because they had injured wings. OK then. A sign said that they have "a compulsive urge to pirate." While we were there, two keepers came along -- a Ugandan guy and a Chinese woman -- and the guy taught the woman how to throw fish through the fence. The trick is to throw them.

The eagles watched the fish carefully but didn't go for them, so there were just a bunch of fish flopping and dying on the grass in the cage. We waited for a bit but I guess the they didn't want to eat in front of us.

Next we walked over to what would be the highlight of the visit: white rhinos. There was a sign saying that there are only forty-one of these left in the world. This is confusing. There are two types of white rhino -- the Northern White Rhino and the Southern White Rhino. There are about twelve thousand extant Southern, so presumably it wasn't talking about those. But there are only nine known Northern White Rhinos left in the world, all of which are in zoos in San Francisco and the Czech Republic. There were four wild ones in the Congo, but no one's seen them in years. Forty-one is closer to nine than it is to twelve thousand, but if Uganda had a pair of Northern, surely someone would have noticed.

Anyway, whichever these were, they were pretty awesome. They were just relaxing in the mud at the far end of the pen. We watched them for a few minutes and then walked around to the side of the pen to get a bit closer.

That's when they decided to come play. First one, then the other, stood up and walked over to us. Some were a bit concerned because the rhinos looked a lot stronger than the thin metal bars of the fence, but I figured, if they wanted out, they'd be out already. Sure enough, they just came over to say GRRRGRRHRRRsiiiigh.

That's me petting a rhino. They look armored from far away, but their skin is actually soft and very sensitive -- that’s why they try to maintain a thick mud coating. They were very calm -- I guess I would be calm too if I weighed 5000 pounds and had people bringing me food and protecting me from poachers. (The last white rhinos in Zambia were recently killed by poachers.) Well, the skin seems soft, but it's clearly tougher than human skin, and much of it was caked in mud.

Another group came over with a guide, and he called the rhinos to their part of the fence, so we walked around. He was a little rougher with them, grabbing them by the ears (which can move independently, good trick) and holding their heads so the kids could pet them. We did too. The rhinos didn't seem to mind and I got to pet a rhino horn (which are made of keratin, same as human nails, not bone like deer antlers). They stayed with us for a while, maybe fifteen minutes, and then the male started scraping his horn across the female's side -- possibly some sort of massage? Then they walked off. Good times.

Anyway, when the rhinos leave, you know the party's over, so we walked away too, heading down a little forest path. We walked above a few cages filled first with birds and then with a serval cat. These awesome things can jump something like ten feet in the air, and they hunt birds in flight. Pretty awesome. These servals weren't jumping, though, they were just lying around. Less awesome.

Then we followed the path more and it turned out we had just taken the forest walk. Fine. We went down to a little beach where Lake Victoria came up to the wildlife preserve. There was a restaurant overlooking the lake but we didn't want to mess around with zoo food. The beach was sandy, but not fine powdery sand, more like big chunky dirt sand. I opted not to wade in.

After the lake we saw some other animals, including warthogs (v. ugly) and zebra. A sign explained that warthogs are universally beloved for their ugly appearances. A sign near it said that marabou storks are universally despised for their ugly appearances. Seemed unfair. We then walked over to a little water-related area where there were crocodiles and this little otter (not in the same pen). Sure enough, we waited for a while and he started otting. The crocs weren't moving, just lying in the water with their noses poking out.

Then we walked over to the chimp island. At first they were all hiding in the trees, but as a small crowd accumulated, the keepers realized that it wasn't a good show and started throwing ice chunks onto the island. Immediately all the chimps ran over to the edge and started jumping for them, and whenever one got a piece a few others would fight him for it. Meanwhile the rest stood at the edge, arms stretched out, waving for more. It was exactly like watching someone throw t-shirts at a concert, except furrier.

We walked back to the bird area and saw this guy, the shoe-billed stork. The Bradt guide to Uganda goes on and on about how totally awesome it is to see this bird. After close examination, I have reached the following two conclusions: 1. It is not awesome to see this bird. 2. This is probably not even a real bird. It didn't move or anything, just stood there and looked fake at me. I think it's some sort of Disney project.

On the way out we swung by the lion again, and as we watched he woke up, yawned a bit, and then strolled over to one side of the cage. We walked over and he immediately walked to the other side. We played that game for a while, us slowly chasing him, him slowly meandering away. I tried putting my fingers through the fence but he looked a little too interested so I stopped that game. We also swung by the Nile fisher eagles again -- they were sitting exactly where they were before, but all the fish were gone. Tricky bastards.

Figuring we had seen all the animals, we left the preserve and discovered a troop of little furry guys hanging out outside the zoo. They were playing in the trees near a little café and climbing around on the tables, and as we approached one of them urinated on a table, laughed at us, and climbed up onto the little roof over the table.

OK, primate identification. They're definitely simians, not prosimians. They have tails, so they're not great apes, and they're not gibbons, so they're not lesser apes, so they're monkeys of some kind. The tails weren't prehensile and their nostrils point downward, so they're Old World monkeys. After looking at photos, I think they're vervet monkeys.

We played with them for a while, letting them pet a camera, handing them flowers and leaves, etc. They were surprisingly brave considering they are made of bushmeat. They didn't seem hostile at all, just curious and probably hoping we had delicious snacks concealed about our persons. They scampered around the tables and tree grooming each other. We were careful not to actually touch them -- I've seen monkeys go from friendly and inquisitive to sharp and angry in milliseconds.

We were ready to leave when we saw that there were baby monkeys in the corner. They were adorable -- two little guys playing around with each other. From time to time one of the mothers would come over and scoop up a baby and try to hold it, but the babies clearly wanted to play, so they would squirm until they got free.

The adult monkeys were happy to play with us, but we were not allowed anywhere near the babies. Every time we tried, a large one would jump in front of us and glare menacingly. If a baby came near us, an adult would scoop it up and take it away. We got the message.

Anyway, we more or less ran out of things to do with the monkeys, and none of us being willing to lie still to see if a monkey would groom us, we decided to head back. We stopped along the way for some grilled Nile perch, which was very delicious.

That concludes my Entebbe adventure. I didn't really see the city itself, though I have the impression that there isn't much more to see. I don't have any immediate plans to go back, though petting a rhino is surely going to be one of my favorite things on this trip.