Serengeti National Park

Serengeti National Park is one of Africa’s most iconic safari destinations, popular for African wildlife safaris/Tanzania Wildlife Safaris. This vast protected area is located in northern Tanzania and extends across 14,763 km².  It lies within the eastern Mara Region and the northeastern Simiyu Region and includes more than 15,000 km² of unspoiled savanna.

The Serengeti is renowned for hosting the world’s largest yearly wildlife migration, involving over 1.5 million western white-bearded wildebeest and 250,000 Grant’s zebra, along with approximately 400–500,000 Thomson’s gazelle and smaller groups of common elands. This National Park also supports Africa’s largest lion population and other members of the African Big Five (leopard, rhino, buffalo, and elephant). The name “Serengeti” is commonly linked to the Maasai word siringet, meaning “the place where the land runs on forever” or “endless plains.”

History and Facts about Serengeti National Park

In 1930, a 2,286 km² area in the southern and eastern Serengeti was set aside as a game reserve. During the same decade, the government of Tanzania (Tanganyika) created a National Park system in line with the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora. Major Richard Hingdston, who was visiting Tanganyika on behalf of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire, suggested that the Serengeti Game Reserve be upgraded to a National Park to protect it from increasing population pressure and economic development.

In 1940, it was officially declared as a National Park. In 1948, strict protection measures were introduced with the establishment of the Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees to manage the park. The government limited the movement of the resident Maasai population, and the park’s boundaries were defined in 1951. In 1959, an 8,300 km² section in the eastern part of the park was separated and designated as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, allowing for traditional Maasai land use within a multiple-use landscape.

By 1981, Serengeti National Park covered 12,950 km², representing less than half of the greater Serengeti ecosystem. Since 2005, the park, together with the Maasai Mara National Reserve, has formed a Lion Conservation Unit supporting more than 3,000 lions.

The density of African leopards is estimated at 5.41 individuals per 100 km² during the dry season. African bush elephant populations, which had dropped to low levels in the 1980s due to poaching, recovered to more than 5,000 individuals by 2014. The African buffalo population declined between 1976 and 1996 as a result of poaching but rebounded to 28,524 individuals by 2008. Eastern black rhinoceros numbers fell to around 10 individuals in the 1980s due to poaching, and fewer than 70 remain in the park today. In 2010, the park supported an estimated 3,520 Masai giraffes, down from 10,750 in 1977.

Wildlife and Attractions in Serengeti National Park 

Serengeti National Park is a great destination for wildlife viewing in Africa, hosting from the iconic African Big Five (lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo, and elephant) to the spectacular wildebeest migration. Serengeti is a great wildlife viewing destination in Africa and a must visit for those looking for a true spectacle. Among the wildlife found in the park are the carnivores including the cheetah, spotted hyena, black-backed jackal, East African golden wolf, honey badger, striped hyena, caracal, serval, banded mongoose, and two species of otters. The African wild dog was returned to the area in 2012 after disappearing in 1991.

During wildlife safaris in Serengeti National Park or Tanzania, you will also encounter hippopotamus, common warthog, aardvark, aardwolf, African wildcat, African civet, common genet, African striped weasel, bat-eared fox, ground pangolin, crested porcupine, three species of hyraxes and Cape hare.

Reptiles in the park include Nile crocodile, leopard tortoise, serrated hinged terrapin, rainbow agama, Nile monitor, Jackson’s chameleon, African python, black mamba, black-necked spitting cobra, and puff adder.

For travelers interested in Bird watching, Serengeti National Park is home to more than 500 bird species including the Masai ostrich, secretarybird, kori bustards, helmeted guineafowls, grey-breasted spurfowl, blacksmith lapwing, African collared dove, red-billed buffalo weaver, southern ground hornbill, crowned cranes, sacred ibis, cattle egrets, black herons, knob-billed ducks, saddle-billed storks, white stork, goliath herons, and marabou storks among others,

The Great Wildebeest Migration

The great migration is the second longest land migration in the world. The full migration route spans roughly 800 km (500 mi). The southern portion of this route includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where about half a million wildebeest are born between January and March. By March, as the dry season begins, approximately 1.5 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebras move northward toward Kenya’s Maasai Mara. They are accompanied by common eland, plains zebra, and Thomson’s gazelle. During April and May, the migrating herds travel through the Western Corridor. On their journey to the Maasai Mara, they must cross the Grumeti and Mara Rivers, where nearly 3,000 crocodiles wait. For each wildebeest taken by crocodiles, another 50 drown. When the dry season ends in late October, the herds begin their return south. Each year, around 250,000 wildebeest and 30,000 plains zebras die due to drowning, predation, exhaustion, thirst, or disease.