Serengeti : Wildlife at its natural habitat
The Serengeti is a vast ecosystem in east-central Africa. It spans 12,000 square miles (30,000 square kilometers), according to NASA, giving rise to its name, which is derived from the Maasai language and means "endless plains."
This region of Africa is located in north Tanzania and extends to southwestern Kenya. The Serengeti encompasses Serengeti National Park and a number of protected game reserves and conservation areas maintained by the governments of Tanzania and Kenya. The region hosts the largest mammal migration in the world and is a popular destination for African safaris.
Blue wildebeests, gazelles, zebras and buffalos inhabit the region, along with lions and spotted hyenas familiar to fans of the Disney film “The Lion King.”
Each year the great wildebeest migration begins in December in the Ngorongoro area of the southern Serengeti of Tanzania, which offers rich grasslands for feeding. This is a huge attraction for tourists, and while many think it is an intense and short-lived phenomenon, it is actually a fairly slow trek. It occurs during this time because there plenty of rain-ripened grass available for the 750,000 zebra that precede 1.2 million wildebeest and then the hundreds of thousands of other plains game bringing up the rear of the migration path.
Wildebeests bear their young in February and March, which sparks predators. Then, in May as the plains of the south and east dry out the mass moves on to the north and west crossing the Grumeti River, where there is more grass and more a more reliable water supply.
Some 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to Maasai Mara Reserve in lower Kenya, a total of 500 miles (800 km), according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation.
And some wildebeest drown. An average of 6,250 wildebeest die every year crossing the Mara River in eastern Africa during this annual migration. And scientists have found their deaths weren't for naught. Reporting online June 19, 2017 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers looked at 13 mass drownings that occurred between 2001 and 2015, finding that the thousands of corpses are the equivalent of more than 1,000 tons of biomass that can feed the Serengeti. Animals that benefit include scavengers like vultures and crocodiles, as well as maggots and even fish and algae that benefit from the nutrients released from the wildebeests' bones.
But large mammals are not the only ones that make their home in the Serengeti. Gaudy agama lizards and rock hyraxes make themselves comfortable in the numerous granite kopjes, which are formations of huge boulders of sparkling, coarse rock. A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, ranging from the outsized ostrich to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills.
The Serengeti National Park is home to the largest lion population in Africa. It is under threat from deforestation, population growth and ranching.
Because the hunting of lions made them so scarce, the British decided to make a partial game reserve of 800 acres (3.2 square km) in the area in 1921 and a full one in 1929. These actions became the basis for Serengeti National Park, which was established in 1951.
The Serengeti gained more fame after the initial work of Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael in the 1950s. Together they produced the book and film “Serengeti Shall Not Die,” an early nature conservation documentary.
As part of the creation of the park and in order to preserve its wildlife, the Maasai tribe were relocated to the Ngorongoro highlands, a move that still elicits much controversy.
This region of Africa is located in north Tanzania and extends to southwestern Kenya. The Serengeti encompasses Serengeti National Park and a number of protected game reserves and conservation areas maintained by the governments of Tanzania and Kenya. The region hosts the largest mammal migration in the world and is a popular destination for African safaris.
Blue wildebeests, gazelles, zebras and buffalos inhabit the region, along with lions and spotted hyenas familiar to fans of the Disney film “The Lion King.”
Each year the great wildebeest migration begins in December in the Ngorongoro area of the southern Serengeti of Tanzania, which offers rich grasslands for feeding. This is a huge attraction for tourists, and while many think it is an intense and short-lived phenomenon, it is actually a fairly slow trek. It occurs during this time because there plenty of rain-ripened grass available for the 750,000 zebra that precede 1.2 million wildebeest and then the hundreds of thousands of other plains game bringing up the rear of the migration path.
Wildebeests bear their young in February and March, which sparks predators. Then, in May as the plains of the south and east dry out the mass moves on to the north and west crossing the Grumeti River, where there is more grass and more a more reliable water supply.
Some 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to Maasai Mara Reserve in lower Kenya, a total of 500 miles (800 km), according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation.
And some wildebeest drown. An average of 6,250 wildebeest die every year crossing the Mara River in eastern Africa during this annual migration. And scientists have found their deaths weren't for naught. Reporting online June 19, 2017 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers looked at 13 mass drownings that occurred between 2001 and 2015, finding that the thousands of corpses are the equivalent of more than 1,000 tons of biomass that can feed the Serengeti. Animals that benefit include scavengers like vultures and crocodiles, as well as maggots and even fish and algae that benefit from the nutrients released from the wildebeests' bones.
But large mammals are not the only ones that make their home in the Serengeti. Gaudy agama lizards and rock hyraxes make themselves comfortable in the numerous granite kopjes, which are formations of huge boulders of sparkling, coarse rock. A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, ranging from the outsized ostrich to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills.
The Serengeti National Park is home to the largest lion population in Africa. It is under threat from deforestation, population growth and ranching.
Because the hunting of lions made them so scarce, the British decided to make a partial game reserve of 800 acres (3.2 square km) in the area in 1921 and a full one in 1929. These actions became the basis for Serengeti National Park, which was established in 1951.
The Serengeti gained more fame after the initial work of Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael in the 1950s. Together they produced the book and film “Serengeti Shall Not Die,” an early nature conservation documentary.
As part of the creation of the park and in order to preserve its wildlife, the Maasai tribe were relocated to the Ngorongoro highlands, a move that still elicits much controversy.
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