safari Details

Serengeti National Park

Is a large national park in northern Tanzania that stretches over 14,763 km2 (5,700 sq mi). It is located entirely in eastern Mara Region and north east portion of Simiyu Region and contains over 15,000,000 hectares (37,000,000 acres) of virgin savanna. The park was established in 1940.

The Serengeti is well known for the largest annual animal migration in the world of over 1.5 million blue wildebeest and 250,000 zebra and the largest lion population in Africa. It is under threat from deforestation, population growth and ranching.

The name \"Serengeti\" is an approximation of the word siringet used by the Maasai people for the area, which means \"the place where the land runs on forever\".

Serengeti National Park forms a Lion Conservation Unit since 2005 together with Maasai Mara National Reserve. More than 3,000 lions live in this ecosystem. The population density of the African leopard is estimated at 5.41 individuals per 100 km2 (39 sq mi) in the dry season.

Great migration

The great migration is the world's longest overland migration. The complete migration route is around 800 km (500 mi). South of this migration route covers the Ngorongoro Conservation Area where around half a million wildebeests are born between January and March. By March, at the beginning of the dry season, roughly 1.5 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebras start to migrate heading north towards Maasai Mara in Kenya. Common eland, plains zebra, and Thomson's gazelle join the wildebeest.

In April and May, the migrating herds pass through the Western Corridor. To get to the Maasai Mara, the herds have to cross the Grumeti and Mara Rivers where around 3,000 crocodiles lie in wait. For every wildebeest captured by the crocodiles, 50 drown. When the dry season ends in late October, the migrating herds start to head back south. Around 250,000 wildebeests and 30,000 plains zebras die annually from drowning, predation, exhaustion, thirst, or disease.

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