MASAI MARA, Kenya, 16 September 2003 — In a phenomenal annual migration, hundreds of thousands of wildebeest in search of pasture stampede their way into Kenya’s Masai Mara game park from the Serengeti in Tanzania.
A wonder of the natural world, the yearly migration sees more than 500,000 snorting and grunting wildebeest or gnus, stream across borders accompanied by zebras, gazelles, elands and a host of predators like lions and leopards.
Millions of hooves carry the huge, bearded antelopes with long, black faces into Kenya only to carry them back across the Sand river that lies along the border of the two countries, four months later.
For Kenya, this year’s migration is particularly welcome.
The east African country suffered a drought of tourists after Britain and the United States issued travel advisories against visiting Kenya in March, citing a security threat.
But the migration has saved what would have been a dire situation — hotels in the game park are heaving with tourists from Italy, Germany, Britain and the United States.
“As is proved by the numbers here at the Club and all over the Masai Mara, it is safe,” Hassan Abdi, general manager at the Mara Safari Club told Reuters, anxious to reassure guests who might be put off by the security warnings.
“It is a message for our friends out there that it is very safe, there is nothing to fear. Come and have fun.”
Kenya’s tourism industry, a key foreign exchange earner, was just getting back on its feet after the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, when suicide bombers struck in the popular coastal resort of Mombasa last November.
The attack on an Israeli-owned hotel, which killed at least 16 people, minutes after a botched attempt to shoot down an Israeli plane leaving Mombasa airport brought Kenya’s tourism sector once again to its knees.
A travel warning by the United States remains in place, although Britain partially lifted its flight ban to Kenya, leaving British Airways and charter flights to Mombasa still grounded.
Tourism provides jobs for some 500,000 Kenyans and contributed about 26 billion shillings ($340.3 million) to the economy in 2002.
Attracted by the scent of fresh grass following seasonal rains across the plains, the animals follow their noses into Kenya, but in their path lie crocodile-infested rivers.
“We lose quite a number of them as they migrate, from drowning and crocodiles, and lots more are eaten by predators,” said Bernard Ngoru, a Kenya Wildlife Service researcher.
He estimates that the country will welcome about half a million animals this year but others say it will be up to three times that figure — about 1.5 million wildebeest alone.
The migration to Kenya usually starts in July and ends with the beasts returning in October. This year, it started late and the animals are not expected to return until November.
Due to the sheer size of the herds, it is always difficult to tell when the main one moves into the country.
“People have said that because there are many animals of that one type, although it is a stupendous sight, that it crowds out the other animals a little bit and it sort of distracts you,” said David Matthews, an American on an exchange program to a Kenyan University.
He has been to the park on five different occasions, but has not been able to catch the largest herd pouring in, only seeing groups of several thousands at a time.
Before the 1970s, migration numbers were not so large — some 80,000 animals on average — because rinderpest, a highly infectious viral disease that also affects cattle, would wipe out whole herds.
After the disease was brought under control, the wildebeest population began to rise, peaking at 900,000 beasts migrating into Kenya in 1979 from 80,000 a decade earlier.
