The Serengeti
is on of the world's last great wildlife refuges. This vast
area of land supports the greatest remaining concentration of
plain game in Africa, on a scale unparalleled anywhere else
in the world. The name comes from the Maasai 'Siringet', meaning
endless plains. Equal in size to Northern Ireland, the Park
contains an estimated three million large animals, most of which
take part in a seasonal migration that is one of nature's wonders.
The annual migration of more than 1.5 million wildebeests as
well as hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles is triggered
by the rains. The wet season starts in November and lasts until
about May. Generally the herds congregate and move out at the
end of May. Their movement is a continual search for grass and
water - the moving mass of animals requiring over 4,000 tons
of grass each day. The exodus coincides with the breeding season
which causes fights among the males. As the dry season sets
in the herds drift out of the West, one group to the North,
the other north-east heading for the permanent waters of the
northern rivers and the Mara. The immigration instinct is so
strong that animals die in the rivers as they dive from the
banks into the raging waters, to be dispatched by crocodiles.
The survivors concentrate in Kenya's Maasai Mara National reserve
until the grazing there is exhausted, when they turn south along
the eastern and final stage of the migration route. Before the
main exodus, the herds are a spectacular sight, massed in huge
numbers with the weak and crippled at the tail end of the procession,
followed by the patient, vigilent predators.
The vegetation in the Serengeti ranges from the short and long
grass plains in the south, to the acacia savannah in the centre
and the wooded grassland concentrated around tributaries of
the Grumeti and Mara rivers. The western corridor is a region
of wooded highland and extensive plains reaching to the edge
of Lake Victoria.
The Seronera Valley in the Serengeti is famous for the abundance
lion and leopard that can usually be seen quite easily. The
adult male lions of the Serengeti have characteristic black
manes.
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