Ecosystem | Animals | The Great Migration | People
Serengeti National Park and surrounding areas are home to one nature’s most awe-inspiring displays. Each year, vast herds of hoofstock thunder across the plains, with more than 2 million wildebeest, half a million gazelles and a quarter-million zebras migrating in search of fresh food and water.
During the winter rainy season, the hoofed herds gather on the grassy plains of the southern Serengeti, where females give birth to calves and the herbivores graze on plentiful food. As water becomes scarce in late spring, the herds head north in groups numbering in the hundreds of thousands, moving over the plains and storming across rivers and other obstacles in their path.
The animals continue to migrate north through the Serengeti during summer, leaving dry grasslands behind them. The wildebeest, gazelles and zebras reach their furthest-north point, Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve, in fall, at which point they rest for a month or two before heading south again. By traveling throughout the larger Serengeti ecosystem, these animals can make the most efficient use of its resources.
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