MASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE: THE GREAT MIGRATION:
Map of the Masai Mara great migration:
Lest look at it. Africa often seems not any more its past. The past thinking of wild animals was roaming free through unspoiled and savage wilderness, this has however been caused by human encroachment of traditional wildlife haunts, together with development associated to modern times. Today, human settlers are safeguarded from the occasional raging raids by hungry animals, by fencing most of the national parks and reserves in Africa. This also prevents the illegal hunting of birds and animals. Fencing is not easy, it disturbs and indeed not cheap at all. But even so, it helps to favour the much-needed progress in African countries that struggle to move forward as they continue conserving nature.

It is important to note that the charisma of an open and limitless land is still retained by some places. One of the only places in Africa that brings out the memory of the wildlife concentrations of the great white hunters, when the whole of East Africa was a free and wild hunting ground is the Masai Mara national Conservation, which is located at a remote southwestern corner of the Kenyan territory. The conservation is not fenced, and so this makes animals move at their whims without any obstacle, provided their mates’ territorial borders allow them to do so.

The wildlife moves around through the 1510Km2 encompassed within the protected area and they even go as far as north and east of the conservation, to the adjoining Loita Plains and Hills too, and further into the Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania,-all this is so because there are no other limits that exist, or even the national boundaries. All this makes up the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem that comprises a 25,000Km2 worth piece of Africa.

Climate highly conditions the movements of the wildlife. Serengeti’s large plains allow a wide separation of large herbivore herds into a wide area, but the plains hardly support an all-year round provision of forage because of the fact that the precipitations they receive are seasonal. Masai Mara region proves to be the wettest area of the ecosystem, because it has got a permanent water source, which is the Mara river and on top of that, it receives rains from November through June with frequent storms throughout the year. Foe this fact therefore, Masai Mara has a strong force that pulls large herds that look for fresh pastures, no wonder therefore, the great migration has been a result of this park. Each year, a total of 1.5 million wildebeests (or white-bearded gnu), 250,000 Burchell’s Zebra and half a million Thomson’s gazelle move through the Serengeti-Mara complex along a cyclic march that covers annually some 1,800 miles.

The migration is relatively a recent phenomenon. Dr. Bernhard Grzimek observed seasonal treks before the 1960’s and he is the very one who first described a definite pattern in the migratory moves. In the 60’s and 70’s, the wildebeest population increased suddenly, peaking from some 250,000 to the current nearly one and a half million, making the migration an extremely large display that could well rank top in a list of the world’s nature wonders. Meanwhile, there is a lot of competition between “the wild cattle” and the livestock, which the local Maasai people rear. This is because these native Maasai people believe that the wild cattle are a calamity since they poison the waters with their foetal sacs and even transmit diseases to their own cattle.

One wonders when and where does the migration start. However, the answer is clear, that; the migration has no start nor does it have an end, the fact is that each wildebeest in the Serengeti pilgrims constantly not until the animal’s life comes to an end.
Therefore, the only beginning to consider is birth. Serengeti is a nice habitat when the season is wet. This is because grass abounds on the southern plains and in the Ngorongoro reserve area, and so the animals find it a better place to graze and drop their calves. Important t note is that 400,000 wildebeests are born a long a period of six weeks,-from late January to mid-March, however, many of these do not get a chance of going for pleasure walks, because of the fact that jackals and hyenas grab them when they are still so young. Those that remain have very limited time of strengthening their legs, since the journey starts in April when the rains are over in southern Serengeti and when the plains have already dried up. Hence, the great herds get together and so northwards and westwards they trek.

A constellation of carnivores especially lions and hyena will leave the solemn procession travel alone. They will follow closely, as whilst the vulture squadron over fly the parade. Very many weak or ill animals will join the journey and these with no doubt will end up devoured, yet still very few calves will live to see Serengeti again.

By the power of a mysterious shepherd God, the lawn mowers go for the tall grass of the Western Corridor, near the shores of Lake Victoria, leaving the grasslands of southern Serengeti that tend to be completely used. Since zebras like the long woody stems and yet wildebeests hate them, then the compenetration between the two is perfectly accomplished by biologically favoured.

In Masai mara, the northward side of the human’s border experiences rains in late May. This is the very period when the herds leave the western corridor and take the northern Serengeti plains and woodlands, where they exhaust the prairies smelling the rains. The fresh, tender and mineral-rich pastures are so attractive that wild cattle cannot leave them before they finally invade the Kenyan reserve, an event which normally begins in late June and ends in early July. The troupes from the south then meet here another migratory contingent; the resident wildebeest herds of the Mara region. These animals that add up to 100,000, stay in the Loita plains and Hills, northeast of the Mara, not until they move on to look for the evergreen Mara basin, after the dry season bringing them the tougher days.

The herds normally cross the sand River: a mostly dry tributary of the Mara, which roughly follows the boundary line between Kenya and Tanzania, during the month of July, and so the parade moves to the eastern sector of Masai mara, surrounding the Keekorok lodge area. The journey then continues westward, and this includes crossing the Mara river and frequently also its tributary, the Talek, which is the major challenge to the herds during their search. By this time, the stream is fed to its highest levels by the rains t the Mau escarpment, where the Mara rises. The trunk-looking basking crocodiles which seem almost to be expecting their annual banquets populates the steep banks.

A long the migration, the operation of walking across a shallow place on a river is the most delicate and this seems to make wildebeests plunge in a state of worry and fear, until the crossing by the whole herd is done. It is so interesting to watch the highly social and gregarious behaviour of these animals, resembling more a flock for its co-ordinated movements. The animals which are trekking, continue to move along the left (eastern) bank of the Mara until they get the best crossing point. A long the course, are many of the preferred crossings, which are easily identifiable by the lack of vegetation, the depressed slopes and the deep grooves carved by the animals’ hooves. Such places are therefore the most secure ones when it comes to walking across the river, and no wonder therefore, they even ensure minimal death rates. However, the apparent programming of the whole process may sometimes fail to work out well, and many of the animals end up breaking their legs down the cliff or even fall flat into the waters, because these nervous herds occasionally choose places where the banks are too steep. Getting together at the suitable points, the herds wander around nervously, and their loud grunts fill the whole place.

Eventually, one of the animals moves forward trying to get to the circular edge, when it gets there, it looks carefully at every part of the opposite edge and so it analyses if any danger might be awaiting them after they cross. If it finally dives into the stream, the rest of the herd is pulled, and so more animals follow in a singe line across the river, while the lagged ones throw themselves towards the stream until the group that is protecting at the back pushes the troops to the extremely frightened race that leads to some animals lying a side the course, as they continue to be stepped on heavily to death.

If only any animals senses any danger during crossing, it will jump back pulling the other animals as well to a general retreat, which sometimes brings panic and as a result, animals will start running in the same direction because they are frightened. When the line breaks, the animals that succeeded in crossing will hardly follow their journey before the whole herd has passed: they will continue grunting at the opposite bank. On a rare basis it is the zebra minority who takes the concern of keeping the animals together, infrasepresented though these animals are.

Actually, zebras are not relay herd animals, but they form small groups, which a dominant fully grown horse heads, and it is during the migration that they mix themselves up with the wildebeests to the extent that they seem to be fully identified with their-bearded pals, and all this trey do to get herd’s protection. Lastly, once the herd has resumed the fording, the leaders head on towards their destiny that is not known.

The crossing has ended and some animals have lost their lives, the crocodiles’ jaws have smashed them to pieces or they have been heavily stepped on by their mates. Generally, the fording as determined by the wildebeests’ survival instinct, ironically brings many of them to the end. The riverbanks where carcasses decay then become permanent residents for vultures and marabou storks. The disgusting massacre landscape, that literally stains I red the chocolate waters, is nothing but one more step in the circle of nature, actually, it is not a scene of death but one of life, since the abundance of meat feeds a great lot of species and controls the herbivores’ population.

Te crossing repeat over and over long the boreal summer, and unless disturbed by the early-morning and late-evening hunts of lions and cheetah-the preying on the calves, the survivors continue feeding peacefully on the Mara Triangle grasslands. There is an additional threat at night, hyenas, which despite their fame of carrion-seekers, get into groups and they frequently make the herds lose their prey to lions after the sunrise, as they continue to siege them.

Due to the fact that, the rains heads south back to Serengeti by October, the pace of the March reverses and during this time, the herds once again start searching for the southern grasslands. The operation of crossing the river is again part of nature’s call. Late October experiences the migration on to the large plains of southern Serengeti, and here, a new generation of calves will be born and so the whole life cycle repeats itself.

The image of the wildebeest columns crossing the plains is one of the most beautiful the visitor can watch in Masai Mara, and this normally happens from July to October. The grasslands are populated by the large herds while we drive long the reserve’s roads and tracks and any lookout conveys the superb display of the lines crisscrossing the landscape in different directions. The choreography reaches its top splendour when seen from above, from one of the balloons that fly with the first morning lights.

Mara’s banks are flanked by tracks from where, if you are a bit lucky and you are a bit patient, you can catch a trilling glimpse of the herds crossing the river. The right (western) bank is bordered by a track that starts in the north, near Oloololo Gate, and follows the stream southward through Mara Serena Lodge to the New Mara Bridge, t the southern ends. At the eastern bank, there is a track from Governor’s camps, which borders the Mara down to the junction with the Talek.