Serengeti
The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region located in north-western Tanzania and extends to south-western Kenya between latitudes 1 and 3 S and longitudes 34 and 36 E. It spans some 30,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi).
The Serengeti hosts the largest migration in the world, which is one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world.
The region contains several national parks and game reserves. Serengeti is derived from the Maasai language, Maa; specifically, "Serengit" meaning "Endless Plains".
Approximately 70 larger mammal and some 500 avifauna species are found there. This high diversity in terms of species is a function of diverse habitats ranging from riverine forests, swamps, kopjes, grasslands and woodlands. Blue Wildebeests, gazelles, zebras and buffalos are some of the commonly found large mammals in the region.
Currently there is controversy surrounding a proposed road that is to be built through the Serengeti in Tanzania.
History
Much of the Serengeti was known to outsiders as Maasailand. The Maasai were known as fierce warriors, and lived alongside most wild animals with an aversion to eating game and birds, subsisting exclusively on their cattle. Their strength and reputation kept the newly arrived Europeans from exploiting the animals and resources of most of their land. A rinderpest epidemic and drought during the 1890s greatly reduced the numbers of both Maasai and animal populations. Poaching and the absence of fires, which had been the result of human activity, set the stage for the development of dense woodlands and thickets over the next 30–50 years. Tsetse fly populations now prevented any significant human settlement in the area.
Fire, elephants, and wildebeest were influential in determining the current character of the Serengeti.By the 1960s, as human populations increased, fire, either intentionally set by the Maasai to increase area available for pasture, or accidentally, scorched new tree seedlings. Heavy rainfall encouraged the growth of grass, which served as fuel for the fires during the following dry seasons. Older Acacias, which live only 60 to 70 years, began to die. Initially elephants, which feed on both young and old trees, had been blamed for the shrinking woodlands. But experiments showed that other factors were more important. Meanwhile, elephant populations were reduced from 2,460 in 1970 to 467 in 1986 by poaching.
By the mid 1970s wildebeest and the Cape buffalo populations had recovered, and were increasingly cropping the grass, reducing the amount of fuel available for fires.The reduced intensity of fires has allowed Acacia to once again become established.
Great Migration
Around October, nearly two million herbivores travel from the northern hills toward the southern plains, crossing the Mara River, in pursuit of the rains. In April, they then return to the north through the west, once again crossing the Mara River. This phenomenon is sometimes called the Circular Migration.
Some 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to Masai Mara Reserve in lower Kenya, a total of 800 kilometres (500 mi). Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation. The migration is chronicled in the 1994 documentary film, Africa: The Serengeti. In January 2007 there were great herds of White eared Kob that now rivals with the Kobs migration.
Ecology
Maasailand has East Africa's finest game areas.The governments of Tanzania and Kenya maintain a number of Protected Areas: parks, conservation areas, game reserves, etc. that give legal protection to over 80% of the Serengeti.
Ol Doinyo Lengai, the only active volcano in the area of the Serengeti, is the only volcano that still ejects carbonatite lavas. This material, upon exposure to air, changes from black to white and resembles washing soda. A thick layer of ash can turn into a calcium rich hardpan as tough as cement after being rained upon. Tree roots cannot penetrate this layer, and the essentially treeless plains of the Serengeti, which lie to the west and down wind of Ol Doinyo Lengai, are the result.
The southeastern area lies in the rain shadow of the Ngorongoro highlands and is composed of shortgrass treeless plains with abundant small dicots. Soils are high in nutrients, overlying a shallow calcareous hardpan. A gradient of soil depth northwestward across the plains results in changes in the herbaceous community and taller grass. Some 70 km (43 mi) west, Acacia woodlands appear suddenly and stretch west to Lake Victoria and north to the Loita Plains, north of the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The 16 Acacia species vary over this range, their distribution determined by edaphic conditions and soil depth. Near Lake Victoria there are flood plains developed from ancient lakebeds. In the far northwest, Acacia woodlands are replaced by broadleaved Terminalia-Combretum woodlands, determined by a change in geology.
This area has the highest rainfall in the system and forms a refuge for the migrating ungulates at the end of the dry season.
Altitudes in the Serengeti range from 920 to 1,850 metres (3,020 to 6,070 ft) with mean temperatures varying from 15 to 25 degrees Celsius. Although the climate is usually warm and dry, rainfall occurs in two rainy seasons: March to May, and a shorter season in October and November. Rainfall amounts vary from a low of 508 mm (20 in) in the lee of the Ngorongoro Highlands to a high of 1,200 mm (47 in) on the shores of Lake Victoria. The highlands, which are considerably cooler than the plains and are covered by montane forest, mark the eastern border of the basin in which the Serengeti lies.
The Serengeti plain is punctuated by granite outcroppings known as kopjes. These outcroppings are the result of volcanic activity. Kopjies provide a microhabitat for non-plains wildlife. One kopje likely to be seen by visitors to the Serengeti is the Simba Kopje (Lion Kopje). The Serengeti was used as inspiration for the animated Disney film The Lion King and subsequent theatrical production.
The area is also home to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which contains the Olduvai Gorge, where some of the oldest hominid fossils are found, as well as the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest unbroken volcanic caldera.
African Wildlife Foundation
The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), originally the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, is a charitable organization with worldwide support founded in 1961. Their mission is to ensure that the wildlife and wild lands of Africa will endure forever.
The AWF operates in three unique but overlapping areas, based on the principle that none of these elements can be separated from the others: Conserving Wildlife, Protecting Land, and Empowering People.
In 1963, AWF partnered in the foundation of the College of African Wildlife Management (Mweka), which has trained over 4,000 wildlife managers from 28 African countries and 18 non-African countries. In 1998, to further the goals of preserving Africa’s natural heritage, the AWF identified eight key landscapes, the African Heartlands, of which two (Kilimanjaro and Maasai Steppe) are part of the Serengeti.
The Serengeti National Park | ||
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| Size: 14,763 Sq. Km. --as big as Northern Ireland or Connecticut-USA. Serengeti is the most popular wildlife sanctuary in the world. Serengeti's low vegetation means that game viewing is relatively easy. It varies from grass plains in the south, Savannah with scattered acacia trees in the center, hilly wooded grassland in the north, to extensive woodland and black clay plains to the west. There are many small rivers, lakes and swamps and "kopjes" scattered about. Animals live in absolute freedom on endless plains. |  | |
| The Serengeti Migration | ||
| The endless plains of east Africa are the setting for the world’s greatest wildlife spectacle - the 1.5 million animal ungulate (wildebeest) migration. From the vast Serengeti plains to Masai Mara (Kenya). Over 1.4 million wildebeest and 200,000 zebra and gazelle, relentlessly tracked by Africa’s great predators, migrate in a clockwise fashion over 1,800 miles each year in search of rain ripened grass. There is no real beginning or end to a wildebeest's journey. Its life is an endless pilgrimage, a constant search for food and water. The only beginning is at the moment of birth. An estimated 400,000 wildebeest calves are born during a six week period early each year - usually between late January and mid-March. This spectacle takes place in Serengeti National Park / Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Even discounting the migration the Serengeti is superb. But the migration puts the park in a league of its own. It is, quite simply, the greatest wildlife show on Earth. Two million animals at times, mostly wildebeest and zebras, moving around an ecosystem 25,000 sq. km. in area, almost as big as the state of Massachusetts. But a lot wilder. At its most spectacular the Serengeti migration is one of the few experiences that really justify the word “awesome”, but to see it you have to know where and when to go, and it isn’t as predictable as some people might think, though over a period it does follow a fairly regular pattern. We will assume on this web-site that we are talking of a typical year – but just remember that wildebeests and zebras don’t use the Internet... There is no beginning or end to the migration but we’ll imagine it all starts with the onset of the “rainy season” (don’t be put off by this expression as the “green season”, as it is now often called, is a lovely time of year and usually nowhere near as wet or dismal as it sounds). The rains tend to begin around mid-November, when the big herds start to file into the south-eastern short-grass plains, around Naabi Hill, Lake Ndutu, the Gol Kopjes, Oldupai Gorge and all other parts of the short-grass plains. | ||
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| Between late January and mid-March the wildebeest calving season takes place. At its peak about 80% of the pregnant females give birth within three weeks, collectively producing something like 8,000 babies each day. The large predators, of course, are on hand to take advantage of this glut. Between mid-May and the month’s end, as the plains dry out, the whole menagerie, as if at the wave of a magic wand, streams off in columns which are sometimes 40 km. long, heading via the Moru Kopjes for the Western Corridor. On the way, the wildebeest rut takes place, for a period of about three weeks, from around mid-June to early July. Dr. Richard Estes, the greatest authority on the Serengeti wildebeest, has described the event as “unbelievably spectacular”. It is certainly chaotic, as something like 250,000 males strive to mate with as many of the 750,000-or-so females as they can. | |
| Between June and August the migrating animals drink from and eventually cross the Grumeti River, but for many it will be their last drink or their last river crossing. For here in the Grumeti are crocodiles that grow to over five metres in length and weigh more than three-quarters of a tonne. They have jaws so thickset and powerful that they can crush a wildebeest's head like a melon, then tear the body into bloody rags. Usually after yanking the victim into the water. The great majority of wildebeest survive, to cross the Ikoma Controlled Area outside the park then pass through the Serengeti’s Northern Extension, crossing the next challenging river, the Mara, in July or August. Most but not all of the wildebeest and zebras also cross the Kenyan border a little way beyond, to remain in the Maasai Mara Reserve until about mid-October, when they begin the return journey. This takes them down the eastern boundary of the Northern Extension, in and out of the park, and eventually back to the short-grass plains. The 1000 km. trek – for those which make it - is complete. Things to remember if you want to see the migration: 1) Decide which time of year you want to go to the Serengeti and choose a lodge or camp that will (hopefully!) put you within easy reach of the migration at that time. A few hints are given in the appropriate sector on hotels and lodges (Northern Circuit). 2) Don’t be put off by the term “rainy season”. It is one of the best times of year in which to see the migration. 3) Remember that you can almost always reach the migration from any lodge or camp within the Serengeti at almost any time, if you are prepared, in some cases, for a long drive. 4) Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you don’t see the migration your trip to the Serengeti will be pointless. All parts of the Serengeti are interesting at all times, though the south-eastern plains, from about June to mid-November, are relatively empty (this doesn’t rule out the Lake Ndutu or Seronera localities, which have resident game even when the migration is absent). | ||
