What animals are found on the Serengeti? Northern Tanzania’s 14,763 Square kilometres(5,700 Square miles) Serengeti National Park is a sizable national park known globally for its great Tanzania safari tours and abundant concentration of wildlife. Over 1,500,000 hectares (3,700,000 acres) of pristine savanna can be found there, and it is situated in the eastern Mara Region and the north-eastern Simiyu Region. In 1940, the park was founded and since then they have managed to conserve and provide great safari tours to its visitors. The term “Serengeti” is a close translation of the Maasai word siringet, which means “the place where the land runs on forever” and is used to describe the region.
Serengeti National Park together with Maasai Mara National Reserve is popular with its the greatest migration safaris in which more than 1.5 million blue wildebeest, 250,000 zebra, and smaller herds of Thomson’s gazelle and eland migrate through the Serengeti every year, making it the greatest annual animal migration in the world. Also found in the national park is Africa’s greatest lion population. It is governed by Tanzania National Park Authority ( TANAPA).
The History of Serengeti National Park
A game reserve was established in the southern and eastern Serengeti in 1930, including 2,286 square kilometres (883 square miles). A network of national parks in Tanganyika were formed in the 1930s in accordance with the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in Their Natural State. Since 1940, the region has been a national park. When the Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees was established in 1948 to oversee the establishment of the national park, tight protection was accorded to it. In 1951, the park’s boundaries were officially established, and the government placed restrictions on the Maasai residents’ movements.
In order to meet the Maasai people’s traditional land use interests in a multi-use region, an area of 8,300 km2 (3,200 square miles was carved off in the eastern section of the national park and re-established as Ngorongoro Conservation region in 1959. Less than half of the Serengeti, or 12,950 km2 (5,000 square miles), was covered by the Serengeti National Park in 1981.
The wildlife composition of the park
Since 2005, the Serengeti National Park and Maasai Mara National Reserve have formed a Lion Conservation Unit, making it one of the most visited place for Kenya safari tours and Tanzania safari tours for people who are eager to see the African lion. In this environment, there are more than 3,000 lions. 5.41 leopards are thought to inhabit every 100 square kilometres(39 square miles) of African leopard another member of the Big Five animals inhabit during the dry season.
Following a poaching-related problem , the population went low in the 1980s, African bush elephant herds recovered and by 2014, there were more than 5,000 of them. Poaching caused the African buffalo population to decrease between 1976 and 1996, although it rose to 28,524 animals by 2008. Poaching caused the black rhinoceros population to decline to around 10 animals in the 1980s, and currently there are only about 70 left in the park. Grass, woody Indigofera, Acacia, and Crotalaria forbs and shrubs are what rhinos primarily browse on completing the list of the big five animals found here. This are the most sought after animals during an African safari tours.
The Cheetah, around 3,500 spotted hyena, Black-backed jackal, African golden wolf, honey badger, striped hyena, caracal, serval, banded mongoose, and two species of otters are other mammal carnivores. Following its extinction in the region in 1991, the African wild dog was reintroduced in 2012. In addition to these mammals, there are also hippopotamuses, common warthogs, aardvarks, aardwolves, African wildcats, African civets, common genets, zorillas, african striped weasels, bat-eared foxes, ground pangolins, crested porcupines, three kinds of hyraxes, and cape hares. The gallery forests of the Grumeti River are home to primates such mantled guerezas, patas monkeys, vervet monkeys, and yellow and olive baboons.
The Nile crocodile, leopard tortoise, serrated hinged terrapin, rainbow agama, Nile monitor, Jackson’s chameleon, African python, black mamba, black-necked spitting cobra, puff adder, and African python are examples of reptiles.
A great place for birdwatching safaris with more than 500 different bird species can be seen, including the Masai ostrich, secretary bird, kori bustard, helmeted guineafowl, Grey-breasted spurfowl, blacksmith lapwing, african collared dove, red-billed buffalo weaver, southern ground hornbill, crowned cranes, sacred ibis, cattle egrets, black herons, knob-billed ducks, saddle-billed storks.
The Great Migration
The great migration is the longest movement of animals in the history of the planet. 800 km (500 miles) or so make up the entire migration path. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area lies south of this migration route, and it is here that around 500,000 Wildebeest give birth from January to March. Around 1.5 million and 250,000 zebras begin to migrate in March, at the start of the dry season, towards direction of Kenya’s Maasai Mara. The Thomson’s gazelle, plains zebra, and common eland accompany the wildebeest. The migratory herds travel via the Western Corridor in April and May. The herds must cross the Grumeti and Mara Rivers, home to some 3,000 crocodiles, to arrive to the Maasai Mara. 50 wildebeest drown for every one that the crocodiles catch. The migratory herds begin to go back south as the dry season finishes in late October. Every year, some 250,000 wildebeests and 30,000 plains zebras perish from diseases, predation, fatigue, and thirst.
Serengeti National Park geography
What makes Serengeti National Park a great for safaris in Tanzania is its grassland plains, savanna, riverine forest, and forests make up the park’s 14,750 square kilometres(5,700 Square miles) total area. The park is located in northwest Tanzania and is connected to the Maasai Mara National Reserve to the north by the Kenyan border. The Loliondo Game Control Area is located to the northeast and east of the park, while the Ikorongo and Grumeti Game Reserves are to the west and Ngorongoro Conservation Area is to the southeast.
The Serengeti Plain has a very diverse beautiful landscape, with savannah, steep woods, and open grasslands all present. The region’s diverse geography is a result of the harsh weather patterns that frequently occur there, particularly the dangerous interaction of heat and wind. The numerous volcanoes that erupted in the area and added mountains and craters to the terrain are thought to be the source of the region’s various habitats. The Mara River is the only continuously flowing river in the Serengeti environment, and it travels through the Maasai Mara National Reserve on its way from the Kenyan highlands to Lake Victoria.
The Serengeti plains is almost entirely treeless grassland in the south of Serengeti is its most well-known characteristic a perfect scenery for great Game drive safari tours. There are kopjes there granite structures that act as predators’ observation posts. A colony of edaphic plants known as the Volcanic Grasslands grows well on soils made of volcanic ash from neighbouring volcanoes.
The rivers Grumeti and Mbalageti make up the majority of the landscape in the Western Corridor. There are significant clusters of riverine forest and a few minor mountain ranges. Between May and July, the great migration travels through this area, to Lake Victoria. It is also more heavily vegetated than the southern plains despite being flatter than the park’s northern regions.
Northern Serengeti between Seronera in the south to the Mara River on the Kenyan border, open forests, primarily Commiphora, and hills dominate the landscape. It’s out in the sticks and hard to get to.
Except for employees of the Tanzania National Parks Authority, researchers, and staff members of the numerous lodges, campsites, and hotels, no one else is allowed to live inside the park. Seronera, where there is a primary airport, is the principal settlement.
