Great Migration
Each year around the same time, the circular great wildebeest migration begins in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania and loops clockwise through the Serengeti National Park and north towards the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya.[1] This migration is naturally caused, by the availability of grazing. The initial phase lasts from about January to March, when the calving season begins – a time when there is plenty of rain-ripened grass available for the 260,000 zebras that precede 1.7 million wildebeest and the following hundreds of thousands of other plains game, including around 470,000 gazelles.[2][3][4]
During February, the wildebeest are on the short grass plains of the southeast part of the ecosystem, grazing and giving birth to approximately 500,000 calves in 2 to 3 weeks. Few calves are born ahead of time and of these, hardly any survive, largely because very young calves are more noticeable to predators when mixed with older calves from the previous year. As the rains end in May, the animals start moving northwest into the areas around the Grumeti River, where they typically remain until late June. The crossings of the Grumeti and Mara rivers beginning in July are a popular safari attraction because crocodiles are lying in wait.[2] The herds arrive in Kenya in late July / August, where they stay for the rest of the dry season, except that 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 southeast, usually arriving in December in plenty of time for calving in February.[5]
About 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southwestern Kenya, a total of Template:Convert. Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation including by big cats.[6]
See also[edit]
- Kenya, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kiambu, Maasai Mara National Reserve, Lake Victoria, Nairobi National Park, Kisumu, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), List of national parks of Kenya, KES
- Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Serengeti, Mount Kilimanjaro, Serengeti National Park
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.. Source: wikipedia
- ↑ Template:Cite journal
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Anouk Zijlma. "The Great Annual Wildlife Migration – The Great Migration of Wildebeest and Zebra". About.com. Retrieved 3 June 2014.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ "How to Get There, Ngorongoro Crater". Ngorongoro Crater Tanzania. 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2014.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ "Ngorongoro Conservation Area". United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 3 June 2014.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Croze, Harvey; Mari, Carlo; Estes, Richard D. (2000). Serengeti's Great Migration. Abbeville Press. ISBN 978-0-789-20669-5.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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