When is the Great Wildebeest Migration?
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When is the Great Wildebeest Migration?
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Answers ( 2 )
The Great Migration, in Tanzania and Kenya, would one say one is of nature’s most noteworthy occasions, however how would you know where and when to go to really observe it?
The immense Serengeti fields and the slopes of Kenya’s Masai Mara are the setting for the world’s most prominent untamed life exhibition, the 1.5 million creature ungulate (wildebeest) relocation. Over 1.4 million wildebeest and 200,000 zebra and gazelle, constantly followed by Africa’s extraordinary predators, move in a clockwise style more than 1,800 miles every year looking for greener grass.
Once the ‘short downpours’ fall in November and December (some of the time as ahead of schedule as October) the relocation moves from Kenya’s Maasai Mara down through the eastern side of Tanzania’s Serengeti into its sweet and prolific southern-grass fields.
Here, the wildebeest and different ungulates settle among January and April. In April and May the ‘long’ downpours set in and the relocation begins moving from the exhausted southern fields north to the long grass fields in the western passage.
Extensive stream intersections on the Grumeti and Mara Rivers happen as the relocation heads once again into Kenya’s Maasai Mara – the season dries out and crisp touching and water can be found in the far north. The Masaai Mara is more often than not taking care of business in August, September and October.
The millions of wildebeest and zebras are always somewhere, but they are not always in large herds and on the move. Their location is largely dependent on the weather, which can vary considerably from year to year.
In general the herds assemble south of the Serengeti during January and February, the season in which they give birth to their young.
Starting around March they begin moving north and west in search of fresh grazing through the Serengeti Park. They can move in enormously long single file lines or in huge herds.
The bulk of the animals reach the Maasai Mara in Kenya, where they tend to remain during July and August, before starting their return trek southward, back through the Serengeti in November.