Are you interested in why and how animals migrate? Did you know that one herd of zebras migrates more than 300 miles across Namibia and Botswana—farther than any other known African mammal?*
Explore offers a variety of trips to countries which play host to these fascinating natural events, including
Botswana and
Tanzania.
Migration enables animals to live in greater numbers and in different habitats, as the weather dictates, helping to conserve species.
.jpg)
In the Serengeti, some 750,000 zebras and up to two million wildebeest, as well as eland and gazelles, roam from the Masai Mara in lower Kenya to the Ngorongoro area in southern Tanzania, depending on the rains. This is the famous Great Migration; in late October the wildebeest make their hazardous crossing from Kenya to Tanzania to reach its short grass plains by December.
Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains are a vast sea of grass, broken by rocky outcrops known as kopjes. In late January and early February the female wildebeest produce thousands of calves here. The short grass allows the wildebeest to notice any approaching predators easily and use their numbers to protect themselves.
Botswana’s Makgadikgadi National park and Nxai Pan National Park enjoy the second largest mass migration of zebra in southern Africa, after the Great Migration. During the dry season, April to May, huge numbers of zebra, and many wildebeest, hartebeest, gemsbok and eland start to migrate across from the shimmering Makgadikgadi salt pans to the Boteti River on the western side of the Makgadikgadi National Park.
By September the river is alive with huge numbers of zebra enjoying the lush grazing and water, until around November when they start migrating back north again.
These migrations are magical to behold, amidst incredible landscapes and with dramatic river crossings and, of course, the chance to watch game of all sorts, as well as zebra and wildebeest!
*Source: National Geographic