25 and Counting: Inside the Race to Save Uganda’s
“Lost Chimps of Kyambura Gorge”
Kampala, Uganda — 14 July 2026
Deep in Western Uganda, at the edge of Queen Elizabeth National Park, an 11-kilometre-long crack in the earth holds one of Africa’s most fragile primate populations. The Kyambura Gorge is home to a small band of chimpanzees so isolated from other communities that researchers have long called them the “Lost Chimps of Kyambura.” Until recently, nobody knew exactly how many were left.
Today, on World Chimpanzee Day, the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust (VSPT) announced a milestone in the effort to find out: 25 individual chimpanzees have now been positively identified in the gorge since the VSPT Chimpanzee Monitoring Project launched in February 2026. Field teams are continuing their surveys to determine whether more members of the community remain undetected.
The first permanent, science-based monitoring programme
While chimpanzees in Kyambura Gorge have been observed informally for years, this is the first time a permanent, science-based monitoring programme has been established to track them systematically. The project is run in partnership with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), and builds directly on the foundational work of field researcher Nicole Simmons, who began studying the gorge’s chimpanzees back in 2006 — nearly two decades before this programme formalised that work into an ongoing scientific effort.
The stakes could hardly be higher. The Kyambura chimpanzee population is small and isolated, which means its gene pool is correspondingly small — a serious long-term threat to the group’s genetic health and resilience. At the same time, the forest itself is under pressure from the outside: expanding human development around the gorge is steadily narrowing the space chimpanzees have to live, feed, and move.
“The competition between humans and chimpanzees is becoming critical,” said Andrew Kato, VSPT’s Lead Researcher on the Kyambura Chimpanzee Monitoring Project. “I’ve come to realise that every individual chimpanzee matters to the survival of the community, and every human community member surrounding the gorge is critical for the survival of the forest and the chimp population it holds.”
Why every Chimpanzee counts
Chimpanzees are long-lived and slow to reproduce, which means population declines can go unnoticed for years — sometimes until it’s too late to reverse course. That’s precisely the gap this project is designed to close.
“We are excited to use the Kyambura chimp population as a case study using field-based foot surveys, facial recognition and modelling,” explained Dr. Alexander Braczkowski, VSPT’s Scientific Director. “This research will help understand if the demographic changes in the chimp population are stable, and to identify changes early. As chimpanzees are long-lived and slow to reproduce, declines can remain undetected for years without the groundbreaking long-term scientific monitoring that VSPT is doing.”
To reach the milestone of 25 confirmed individuals, the project team — led by Kato alongside fellow VSPT researcher Athens Niwahereza, both of whom grew up in villages bordering the gorge — has worked side by side with UWA rangers and local community trackers. Together they have logged 34 sampling days and covered more than 500 kilometres on foot through the gorge’s dense, often difficult terrain.
A new approach to Chimpanzee monitoring
What sets this project apart is its methodology. The team combines three techniques rarely used together in chimpanzee research: field-based foot surveys, individual facial recognition of chimpanzees, and spatially-explicit capture-recapture modelling — a statistical approach that allows researchers to estimate population size and detect demographic change with much greater precision than traditional counts.
This combination is something new in chimpanzee conservation science. The data collected so far is currently being analysed through a spatially-explicit Bayesian capture-recapture model, with findings expected to appear in a peer-reviewed publication by the end of 2026.
Part of a larger vision for Kyambura Gorge
The Chimpanzee Monitoring Project doesn’t stand alone. It’s one strand of the wider VSPT Kyambura Gorge Ecotourism Project, a set of connected community and conservation initiatives that has been working to protect the gorge’s ecosystem since 2009. That longer-term commitment — linking conservation science with community partnership — is central to VSPT’s approach across the region.
The project is based at the VSPT Research Centre at Kyambura Gorge Lodge, inside Queen Elizabeth National Park, and represents a collaboration between VSPT researchers, UWA rangers, and VSPT’s Scientific Director, Dr. Alexander Braczkowski.
Marking world Chimpanzee Day
The announcement comes on a significant date. On 14 July 1960, Dr. Jane Goodall began her pioneering study of wild chimpanzees at what is now Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania — groundbreaking work that first brought global attention to chimpanzees and their behaviour. Every year since, conservationists around the world have marked World Chimpanzee Day to raise awareness of the threats facing these endangered great apes.
VSPT’s partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute reflects that same mission: protecting threatened chimpanzee populations and the wider wildlife they share their habitat with, while working to reduce human-wildlife conflict in the communities that live alongside them.
What comes next
With 25 chimpanzees now confirmed, the research team’s work is far from over. Field surveys will continue in the coming months to establish whether additional, still-undetected individuals are part of the Kyambura community — critical information for understanding the true size and health of this isolated population.
The results of the ongoing capture-recapture modelling, expected in a peer-reviewed publication later this year, will offer the clearest scientific picture yet of whether the Lost Chimps of Kyambura are holding steady, declining, or showing signs of recovery — and what it will take to secure their future.
About Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust (VSPT) is a non-profit organisation in Uganda that connects Volcanoes Safaris lodges to neighbouring communities and conservation activities. VSPT works with local communities and conservation partners to enrich local livelihoods, promote the conservation of the great apes, restore natural habitats, and reduce human-wildlife conflict. Contributions made through Empowers Africa from US residents are tax-deductible.
About Kyambura Gorge Kyambura Gorge, on the edge of Queen Elizabeth National Park in Western Uganda, sits at the centre of an important area for avian, primate, and wildlife biodiversity in Africa. The 11km-long gorge is home to an isolated group of chimpanzees first studied by field researcher Nicole Simmons beginning in 2006.