Serengeti

The Serengeti, Tanzania’s largest national park, supports the greatest concentration of plains game in Africa. Frequently dubbed the eighth wonder of the world, it was granted the status of a World Heritage Site in 1978. It was declared an International Biosphere Reserve in 1981 for its natural splendour. But it’s an equally important site for the emergence of man. Archaeologists have uncovered human evidence at the Olduvai Gorge on the edge of the Serengeti that dates back 3.5 million years, suggesting Tanzania may be the site of the origin of man. The name Serengeti comes from the Masai word Siringitu – ‘the place where the land moves on forever’.
These plains were formed 3-4 million years ago when ash blown from the Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro volcanoes covered the rolling landscape. The park covers a whopping 14 763 sq km and is the centre of the Serengeti Ecosystem – the combination of the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Kenya’s Masai Mara and four smaller game reserves. Within this region live an estimated three million large animals. The system protects the largest single movement of wildlife on earth – the annual wildebeest migration.
Serengeti’s landscape ranges from the vast short and long grass plains in the south, to the acacia savannah in the middle, and wooded grassland concentrated around the Grumeti and Mara rivers. The Seronera Valley in the middle is where most of the campsites are located. The Seronera Lodge is probably the most reliable game viewing location. Here it’s possible to spot many of the Serengeti’s resident wildlife including giraffe, buffalo, antelope, hippo, crocodile, warthog and abundant birds. Large prides of lion can be seen moving stealthily through the long grass or even wandering through the unfenced campsites. (Serengeti’s adult males have characteristic black manes.) Hearing a hyena snuffle at your tent pegs at night is a common experience.
During the wet season in February and March, one of wildlife’s most amazing spectacles occurs. In only 3-4 weeks 90% of the female wildebeest give birth, flooding the plains with thousands of newborn calves each day. These new calves provide easy pickings for larger scavengers and cats, and there’s very good reason why wildebeest calves are able to be up and running within four minutes of birth. The wildebeest may remain in the Serengeti for several months until the plains dry out, and as these vast herds of many thousands of grunting and snorting animals consume a staggering 4 000 tons of grass each day, they’re forced to march north to the fresher pastures in the Masai Mara.
The annual migration of more than 1.5 million wildebeest as well as hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles is triggered by the rains. The wildebeest migrate from the Serengeti usually from June, although changing weather patterns due to El Nino in recent years have had an effect on the exact months. It depends on the way the animals have to cross the Mara River where massive Nile crocodiles with thickset jaws lick their lips in anticipation of a substantial feed. The wildebeest graze on both sides of the Mara River for several months before heading south again to the new grasses in the Serengeti around October, when the endless cycle of life begins again. For any visitor to Tanzania, the herds are a spectacular sight: massed in huge numbers, with the weak and crippled at the tail end of the procession, and the vigilant predators hot on their heels.