Behind The Scenes of The Serengeti

The Serengeti…..The mere mention of its name conjures up visions of the golden-grass savannas, predators, wildebeest and epic sunsets…So powerful are these images that, it could be argued, they have come to represent wild Africa itself. But there is far more to the Serengeti than breathtaking scenery and mighty migrations; it is a functioning, dynamic ecosystem, where animals, people and plants are interconnected in ways that are just starting to be understood.

Fossil found in Olduvai Gorge show that wildebeest roamed the Serengeti plains more than a million years ago. Today they still follow the monsoon cycle, spending the long rains in Tanzania south of Ngorongoro Crater, where grass growth and nutrients are high. When the rains end in May, the plains dry and wildebeest move west towards Lake Victoria, where the local climate produces rainfall. When this rain ceases in turn, the herds thunder north, crossing the Mara River and making their way through the Masai Mara between July and November. They return south to Tanzania to bear their young in January and February. If grasses sustain wildebeest, wildebeest also sustain grasses. Every day more than 400 tonnes of their dung fertilise the Serengeti plains.

In Tanzania a tale of the savanna is told. The Savanna is a place most of the animals like to be, it begins… carnivores such as the lions, the leopard and the cheetah visit the savanna because that’s where their prey – the wildebeest, zebra and gazelle – live and feast on the fresh grass. All these animals, the story continues, enjoy the savanna as they can easily see their enemies and their prey from a distance, thanks to the shortness of the grasses.

The annual migration of more than a million wildebeest across the plains of the Mara – Serengeti ecosystem has neither beginning nor end, for it is an endless cycle as the animals move in search of food and water. However if there is a beginning it can only be at the moment of birth, an annual event of just a few weeks that sees more than 400,000 wildebeest calves being born on the short – grass plains of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania. Here at Great African Excursions we organize a week – long Safari to the heart of the action in the Ngorongoro crater and Ndutu areas.