“Endless plain” means Serengeti for the Maasai. According to directoryaah, the Serengeti, located in northern Tanzania, is the largest national park in the country and one of the oldest ecosystems on earth, at around 15,000 km². The climate, vegetation and fauna have hardly changed in the last millions of years. The Serengeti is famous for its immense wealth of animals and the great migration of herds of around 1 million wildebeest and around 200,000 zebras.
Serengeti National Park: Facts
| Official title: | Serengeti National Park |
| Natural monument | 14,763 km² mainly grassland and savannah, designated as the first national park in the country in 1951, since the expansion in 1959 the largest national park in Tanzania |
| continent | Africa |
| country | Tanzania, Mara, Arusha and Shinyanga regions |
| location | Northeast Tanzania, west of the Rift Valley, border area with Kenya |
| Designation as a World Heritage Site | 1981 |
| meaning | the largest wild animal population in Africa and the last undisturbed “great migration” of huge herds of animals |
| Naming | from »Siringet« (Maasai word for »endless plain«) |
| Flora and fauna | more than 1 million white-bearded wildebeest, around 100,000 zebras, around 7,000 Masai giraffes, up to 150,000 Thomson gazelles; more than 1000 African elephants, up to 3000 lions, seven species of mongoose, leopards, cheetahs, spotted hyenas, golden jackals, servals and civets; over 300 species of birds, including Crowned crane, helmeted guinea fowl and yellow-throated pipit |
In the middle of endless space
No other place in Africa conveys the feeling of sheer endless space as emphatically as the Serengeti. It sets standards, also for the classification of humans in nature. The Serengeti is sedate, static and old – and at the same time lively, dynamic and young. Today, yesterday and tomorrow merge here into a natural unit. Grass, sky and a horizon that seems infinitely distant are – beyond all sensory impressions – to be grasped primarily with the soul. Hardly anyone can escape the lasting impression of this natural harmony. Behind the sober technical term »grass savannah« hides the stage for a haunting lesson in matters of ecology. The wonderful great magic that emanates from the animals acting in this piece.
Around one and a half million wildebeest, hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles undertake the last large-scale mass migrations here, which an ever more space-demanding, continuously growing human population still allows. The animals move in endless columns across the gently rolling savannah. Grass billows in the wind, is grazed, and grows back. Millions of hard hooves trample it down. Where the last of the animals wandered through, only dust and drought remain. One thinks that the turf has now been destroyed. But don’t worry: the grass is coming back. After the next rain it will sprout again, and then the wildebeest and zebras will be here again. Like a year before.
This cycle is easy to understand. When the gigantic herds of pure grass-eaters have grazed the grass, they must move on to where there is still grass. It depends on the rain. In the vast ecosystem of the Serengeti, different amounts of rain fall from place to place, the largest in the west and north. The migrating herds march in huge circles across the country for a year. In January / February they stand in the east on the so-called Serengeti Plains. When the particularly tasty grass there has been grazed, the animals migrate north on various paths by summer. You cross the borders of the national park and the state border between Tanzania and Kenya. They have to leave the protected areas on the way back; in the populated country, however, they are threatened by humans. On these hikes you have to cross a number of rivers that are dangerous due to depth, currents and steep banks, including the Mara River; many can drown or they are captured by crocodiles. Innate behaviors and generations of traditions show them the way. A powerful loyalty to obedience forces every animal to follow the preceding one, blindly and with no choice of its own. If young animals stay behind, their mothers get into a conflict of their powerful instincts. On the one hand, they are urged to stay with the herd, on the other hand, they do not want to abandon the young under any circumstances. Innate behaviors and generations of traditions show them the way. A powerful loyalty to obedience forces every animal to follow the preceding one, blindly and with no choice of its own. If young animals stay behind, their mothers get into a conflict of their powerful instincts. On the one hand, they are urged to stay with the herd, on the other hand, they do not want to abandon the young under any circumstances. Innate behaviors and generations of traditions show them the way. A powerful loyalty to obedience forces every animal to follow the preceding one, blindly and with no choice of its own. If young animals stay behind, their mothers get into a conflict of their powerful instincts. On the one hand, they are urged to stay with the herd, on the other hand, they do not want to abandon the young under any circumstances.
Lions, spotted hyenas and jackals are plentiful, cheetahs can be found wherever they can prey on gazelles, leopards are usually shy. The number of predators, however, in no way depends on the mass of the prey; the stock sizes are regulated by other laws. Predators set up territories that they defend against intrusion by conspecifics; the available space thus limits their number. As long as humans do not intervene, a healthy balance will be maintained in the Serengeti. This equilibrium is, of course, a steady state in which very large fluctuations in stocks, such as humans would never strive for, may be the rule. The Serengeti can serve as one of the last models for the self-regulation of natural equilibria. The insights we gain from this model could at the same time become worth surviving for us humans. However, we would have to be willing to recognize the validity of the laws of nature for ourselves as well. Last but not least, the uniqueness of this ecosystem is a more than sufficient reason not to let Grzimek’s imperative go unheard: Serengeti must not die!
