ADVANCE ‘TEAMS‘ OF THOUSANDS OF WILDEBEEST REACH THE MASAI MARA
(Posted 10th June 2017)
The first of as many as two million migrating wildebeest and zebras have reached the Masai Mara earlier this week, when thousands were reportedly crossing over from the Tanzanian Serengeti National Park in search of fresh pasture.
The annual spectacle has arrived early as has been the trend in recent years and when in full swing will the large herds have crossed on many places along the Sand River and the Mara River, running a gauntlet of huge crocodiles in the river and predators on either side.
The great migration, immortalized by renowned Kenyan wildlife filmmaker Alan Root (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOD5vBDoMVU) then stays in the Masai Mara Game Reserve until October and at times into early November even before then returning to the Serengeti and making their way to the low grass plains between the national park and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation area where the calves are then born before the cycle then repeats itself again.
Kenyan tourism sources expressed excitement to this correspondent about the early arrivals, given that low season tariffs are still in place which makes seeing the spectacle very affordable for the next 20 days until tariffs go up again at the start of July.
Updates on the migration are now also available via https://www.discoverafrica.com/herdtracker/
Sadly is this natural miracle still under threat by plans of the Tanzanian government, never completely shelved despite losing key court cases, to build a road through the national park and literally cut off the age old migration route, which could impact hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebras forced to starve for not being able to reach their grazing grounds across the border in Kenya.
A detailed map is shown below about the road plans and Serengeti Watch, a global NGO, keep monitoring developments on a regular basis. http://serengetiwatch.org/
