Habituation of large mammals to passing vehicles

Abstract

Over a period of 2 years, we noted that many large mammals in the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, remained fairly close to the road—rather than running away—as we drove past at a relatively slow speed, of about 20–25 kph. We consider that over recent years, many of these animals have become habituated to tourist vehicles passing nearby and we recorded the minimum distances at which nine common species remained at, or close to the road edge as we drove past. Many stayed still actually at the edge, while Oribis and Hartebbest sometimes remained on the road itself.