Discover Serengeti national park : Welcome to Serengeti National Park, the only location where you can see vast numbers of wildebeest migrating across the Acacia Plains, the origin of human life, and probably the closest thing to an unspoiled African wilderness you will ever see. Despite the thousands of animals that are constantly in motion, time seems to have stopped there.
The greatest wildlife destination on earth
Serengeti National Park’s magic is difficult to express in words. You will try to describe the buzz of millions of wildebeest that is so dense in the air that it vibrates through your entire body to friends and family before realizing that it is impossible. It’s worth the trip just to see the views of the honey-lit plains at sunset. The Maasai people’s sincere smiles instantly warm you from the inside out. It doesn’t matter what time of the year you visit the Serengeti National Park; it’s magical all year round. Or, you could just enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by thousands of animals all the time.
The never-ending circle of the Great Migration
When representatives from the United Nations gathered in Stockholm in 1981, Serengeti National Park was one of the first places to be recognized as a World Heritage Site. This region had already gained recognition as a distinctive ecosystem by the late 1950s, giving us many insights into how the natural world works and demonstrating how dynamic ecosystems actually are.
Today, the main reason people come here is to see the countless wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and elands on a mass migration in search of water and green grass to eat. These ungulates move through the ecosystem in a seasonal pattern that is determined by rainfall and grass nutrients during this great cyclical movement. There is no other place where one can see such vast herds of animals moving. The Serengeti is protected but unfenced, unlike other renowned wildlife parks allowing animals the space they need to make the journey back, which they have been doing for millions of years.
Beyond the Great Migration
Even though the migration is one of the main draws for many tourists to Serengeti National Park, it’s worthwhile to look beyond this enormous spectacle. Nature cannot, first and foremost, be controlled. It’s critical to have reasonable expectations about your chances of seeing a river crossing or a sizable herd in motion. For instance, a river crossing frequently only lasts thirty minutes, making it easy to miss. There are many other reasons to visit the Serengeti, so don’t let this deter you. If not for this vast expanse of land where you can drive forever and never tire, it might be for the extraordinary skies filled with brilliant colors or the instinctive feeling of excitement when a deep, dark gray thunderstorm appears on the distant horizon.
Alternatively, you could heed the lion’s call and travel to the Serengeti to witness one of the world’s highest densities of predators: the herds are home to about 7,500 hyenas, 3,000 lions, and 250 cheetahs. Then there are the mute gray giants. In the Serengeti, elephants amble across the plains and into the woods, where they gorge themselves on leaves and tree limbs.
Discover Serengeti national park : Tribes in the cradle of human life
The Serengeti plains are still dominated by animals, but humans have lived here for a very long time. For almost 4 million years, not only humans but also our ancestors (Australopithecus afarensis) resided in this region. Several native tribes still call Serengeti National Park home today. The Maasai are one of the most well-known tribes; they are distinctive and well-liked because of their long-preserved culture. The Maasai people have maintained their traditional way of life in spite of education, civilization, and western cultural influences, making them a representation of Tanzanian and Kenyan cultures.
Vibrancy, variety, and vastness
You’ll quickly realize that in Tanzania’s renowned National Park, astonishment knows no bounds. The Serengeti is a transitional region, with clear transitions from rich, flat soils to poor, hilly soils in the north, drawing a diverse range of vegetation and animals. Serengeti National Park is a great place to find large cats, birds, or even smaller animals. Your perspective on our world and the environment will change even if you only comprehend and experience a small portion of this ecosystem. You will be forever changed by this place of transition after being awed by its vibrancy, variety, and size.
Discover Serengeti national park : History of Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti plains and the enormous variety of animals that could be found there were described by explorers and missionaries in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Before explorations in the late 1920s and early 1930s provided the first references to the great wildebeest migrations and the first images of the area, only minor details had been reported.
In what is now the southern and eastern Serengeti, a 2,286-square-kilometer area was designated as a game reserve in 1930. Up until 1937, sport hunting was permitted; thereafter, all hunting activities were prohibited. The region was given Protected Area Status in 1940, and the National Park was formally established in 1951, initially encompassing the southern Serengeti and the Ngorongoro highlands. On the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, they built the park’s administrative center.
Thus, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) was also a part of the original Serengeti National Park when it was gazetted in 1951. The Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area were divided in 1959, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area expanded the park’s boundaries to the Kenyan border. The Maasai locals realized they were under threat of eviction and were consequently denied permission to graze their cattle within the national park boundaries, which was a major factor in the separation of the Ngorongoro area. Protests were organized to stop this from happening. The Maasai may live and graze their cattle in the Ngorongoro Conservational area but not inside the Serengeti National Park boundaries as a result of a compromise that saw the Ngorongoro Crater Area separated from the national park.
A permanent passageway was created between the Serengeti plains in the south and the Loita Plains in the north when the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya was established in 1961 and the Lamai Wedge between the Mara River and Kenyan border was added to Serengeti National Park in 1965. A small area north of the Grumeti River in the western corridor was added to the 1962-established Maswa Game Reserve in 1967.
At the 1972 Stockholm conference, the Serengeti National Park was one of the first locations to be suggested by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. In 1981, it was formally founded.
