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Much of the Serengeti was known to outsiders as Maasailand. The
Maasai were known as fierce warriors, and lived alongside most wild animals with an aversion to eating game and birds, subsisting exclusively on their cattle. Their strength and reputation kept the newly arrived Europeans from exploiting the animals and resources of most of their land. A
rinderpest epidemic and drought during the 1890s greatly reduced the numbers of both Maasai and animal populations. Poaching and the absence of fires, which had been the result of human activity, set the stage for the development of dense woodlands and thickets over the next 30–50 years.
Tsetse fly populations now prevented any significant human settlement in the area.
Fire, elephants, and wildebeest were influential in determining the current character of the Serengeti.
[5] By the 1960s, as human populations increased, fire, either intentionally set by the Maasai to increase area available for pasture, or accidentally, scorched new tree seedlings. Heavy rainfall encouraged the growth of grass, which served as fuel for the fires during the following dry seasons. Older
Acacias, which live only 60 to 70 years, began to die. Initially elephants, which feed on both young and old trees, had been blamed for the shrinking woodlands. But experiments showed that other factors were more important. Meanwhile, elephant populations were reduced from 2,460 in 1970 to 467 in 1986 by poaching.
[6]
Wildebeests crossing the river during the Serengeti migration
By the mid 1970s wildebeest and the Cape buffalo populations had recovered, and were increasingly cropping the grass, reducing the amount of fuel available for fires.
[7] The reduced intensity of fires has allowed Acacia to once again become established.
[5]
[edit] Migration
Around October, nearly two million
herbivores travel from the northern hills toward the southern
plains, crossing the
Mara River, in pursuit of the rains. In April, they then return to the north through the west, once again crossing the
Mara River. This phenomenon is sometimes called the Circular Migration.
Some 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from
Tanzania to
Masai Mara Reserve in lower
Kenya, a total of 800 kilometres (500 mi). Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or
predation.
[1] The migration is chronicled in the 1994 documentary film,
Africa: The Serengeti.
