Eventually, they choose a crossing point, and then the eighth wonder of the world unravels.
The concentration of wildlife in one spot, their impulsive bursts of energy and thundering hooves in their trail, culminates in an adrenalin rush as tens of thousands of beasts plunge into the crocodile-infested waters.
It is estimated that about 1.5 million wildebeest, accompanied by large numbers of zebras, Grant’s gazelles, Thomson’s gazelles, elands, and impalas, make an enormous loop every year between the Serengeti in Tanzania and Maasai Mara in Kenya, in search of food.
The event, naturally, has become an icon of the East African safari. Baptised the Eighth Wonder of the World— others call it the World Cup of Wildlife — it bestows Kenya’s and Tanzania’s important tourism industry with significant economic value. Tourists start to camp by the river weeks before the event, anxious to witness the frantic herds and scenes of panic, confusion and triumph.
In the last two financial years leading up to July 2017, according to Kenya Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala, Nairobi spent Sh2 billion on marketing the Maasai Mara abroad. This figure alone points to the significance of the event to the regional tourism industry.
But of note is how crucial the Mara-Serengeti — or Mamase — ecosystem, stretching 25,000 square kilometers wide, is to the survival of these herbivores. Due to their size and habits, wildebeests shape the ecosystems in which they live and move, making them one of what zoologists consider a “keystone species”. It is also an important ecological phenomenon that provides food to predator populations that include lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, and African wild dogs, among others.
And that explains the trepidation over the threat to this famed ecosystem straddling Kenya and Tanzania with only one year-round river — the Mara — a trans-boundary river shared between Kenya upstream and Tanzania downstream that is formed by the confluence of the Amala and Nyangores rivers. It runs 395 kilometers through the Maasai Mara Game Reserve on the Kenyan side and the Serengeti National Park on the Tanzanian side before spitting its waters into Lake Victoria. Originating in the western side of the Mau Escarpment, River Mara covers an area of 13,750 square kilometres, with the upper 65 per cent (8,941 square kilometres) in Kenya and 35 per cent in Tanzania
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