Serengeti, Kenya

The Serengeti National Park is the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world and is unequalled for its natural beauty and scientific value. It has more than two million wildebeest, half a million Thomson's gazelle, and a quarter of a million zebra.

It has the greatest concentration of plains in Africa. It has about 60,000 square kilometer savanna which lies over Tanzania and Kenya. There is a biannual migration that occurs in this place is considered one of the seven tourist travel wonders of the world. This region is full of several national parks and game reserves.

The name 'Serengeti' is derived from the Maasai language and it means an 'extended place'. Its ecosystem includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maswa Game Reserve and the Maasai Mara Game reserve (in Kenya). Lying between the shores of Lake Victoria in the west, Lake Eyasi in the south, and the Great Rift Valley to the east, the region offers the most complex and least disturbed ecosystem on the earth.

There is a unique combination of diverse habitats supporting to more than 30 species of large harbivores and nearly 500 species of birds. Its landscape was originally formed by volcanic activity and has been sculptured by the concerted action of wind, rain and sun.

The region has the open grass plains in the south, the savannah with scattered acacia trees in the centre, the hilly wooded grassland in the north, and the extensive woodland and black clay plains to the west. There are plenty of small rivers, lakes and swamps scattered throughout the area. The south-east region has the great volcanic massifs and craters of the Ngorongoro Highlands.

The climate in Serengeti is normally warm and dry. The rainy season is from March to May apart from short rains falling between October and November. Everything will be lush and green after the rains, but a gradual drying up follows which restricts the plant growth and encourages the animals to migrate in search of permanent waters. It is coldest from June to October, especially in the evenings. The whole of Serengeti plains remained virtually uninhabited for centuries and about hundred years ago the nomadic Maasai came down from the north with their cattle.

 The first European to set foot in the area was the German explorer and naturalist Dr. Oscar Baumann, who passed by as an agent of the German Anti-Slavery Committee on his way to Burundi. He was followed by his compatriots who built Fort Ikoma in the north which was used as an administrative centre until it fell to the British in 1917.

The first professional hunters came in 1913 and they found the wildlife plentiful, mainly the lions. Seven years later, the news of the wonders of the Serengeti reached the outside world. With the growing awareness of the need for conservation, the Serengeti was expanded and upgraded to a National Park in 1951. After eight years, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was established in the south-east as a separate unit.

The place is also important for scientific researches. In the late fifties, Dr. Bernhard Grizmek and his late son Michael did a pioneering work in aerial surveys of wildlife. The Serengeti Research Institute was founded in 1962 at Seronera to provide not only the valuable information for the management and conservation of game parks but also to conduct original research in ecology and ethnology.

It was in the road passes by the Olduvai Gorge, Dr. and Mrs. Leakey found the 1.75 million-year-old remains of Australopithecus boisei ('Zinjanthropus') and Homo habilis which suggest that our species first evolved in this area. To the west, the Gorge reaches Lake Ndutu where there is a safari lodge attractively set amongst trees by the water's edge.

In the open grass plains during the rainy months from November to May hundreds of thousands of wildebeests and Burchell's zebra congregate. Eventually, after several dummy runs, the animals begin their trek in a column several miles long to the permanent waters in the north of the Park. After moving westwards, the migration divides by some uncanny instinct, one group turning north-east and the other due north. Once started, little stops the stampede and hundreds often drown at a time in the broad Mara River in the north.

Lion, cheetah, hyena and hunting dog follow the wildebeest and zebra, making sure that only the fittest survive. In November, when the grazing is finished in the North, this army of animals surges back to the green pastures of the south, where they calve and mate before starting the entire cycle again.

Location

The Serengeti savanna is a region at the border between Kenya and Tanzania.