SERENGETI

The Serengeti : Tanzania

serengeti national park

The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa. It is located in north 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 terrestrial mammal migration in the world, which is one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world.The region contains one national park: Serengeti National Park and several 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 buffalo's 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.

Animals of Serengeti national park

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. Wildebeests crossing the river during the Serengeti migration 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.

Migration

Wildebeest Migration at Serengeti National Park

Each year around the same time the great wildebeest migration begins in the Ngorongoro area of the southern Serengeti of Tanzania. A natural phenomenon determined by the availability of grazing. It is January to March when the calving season begins. A time when there is plenty of rain ripened grass available for the 750,000 zebra that precede 1.2 million wildebeest and the following hundreds of thousands of other plains game.
During February the wildebeest spend their time on the short grass plains of the south eastern part of the ecosystem, grazing and giving birth to approximately 500,000 calves within a 2 to 3 week period: a remarkably synchronized event. Few calves are born ahead of time and of these, hardly any will survive. (Estes 1992) The main reason for this being that very young calves are more noticeable to predators when mixed with older calves from earlier in the previous year, and so are easier prey. As the rains end in May the animals start moving north west, into the areas around the Grumeti River, where they typically remain until late June. July sees the main migration of wildebeest, zebra and eland heading north, arriving on the Kenyan border late July / August for the remainder of the dry season (the Thomson's and Grant's Gazelles move only east/west). In early November with the start of the short rains the migration starts moving south again, to the short grass plains of the south east, usually arriving in December in plenty of time for calving in February.
Some 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to Maasai 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. The second-largest is the South Sudan animal migration.

Animal Migration to Rival Serengeti

giraffe in  Serengeti National Park

Source of artical:
wikipedia