Word: mara
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...annual wildebeest migration is one of nature's most spectacular photo-ops. More than a million wildebeest - also known as gnus - crossing from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve and then back again in the search of fresh grass makes for some dramatic action shots, as massive herds travel across the plains before plunging into the Mara River to swim to greener pastures...
...photos from this year's migration are just as dramatic, but for a different reason. This time, piles of wildebeest carcasses line the riverbanks, after 10,000 of the animals drowned trying to cross the Mara at the start of their journey back east to the Serengeti. The deaths are natural: each year, crocodiles and the strong current claim some victims. The numbers, though, are bizarre. The migration rarely leaves more than a few thousand dead; but this year, an estimated 10,000, or about 1% of the wildebeest population, were wiped out. Conservationists say the wildebeest simply chose...
Nature can be cruel, but sometimes it gets some help. The Mara River was especially high this year, after the heavy rains that flooded parts of Africa, killing hundreds of people and uprooting thousands more. Climatologists are pointing to the downpours as proof that predictions that Africa will suffer the most from global warming and climate change are already coming true. The human toll is what makes all the headlines, but the consequences for Africa's wildlife is just as drastic...
...mild, not too hot," says Taye Teferi, head of the Conservation Program at the WWF's East Africa Regional Program Office. "But climate change has accentuated the difference between the seasons, making the rainy season shorter and heavier and the dry season hotter." When animals migrate to the Masai Mara every spring, it allows the vegetation they leave behind in the Serengeti to regrow, ready for them to come back in the fall. No rain means no new vegetation to return to. The animals stay put and the land can't cope: The grass stops growing, the animals...
...while conservationists at the Masai Mara work hard to protect the wildebeest from poachers, they were helpless against the combination of bad luck and global warming. Brian Heath, head of the Mara Conservancy, which covers one-third of the reserve, told Britain's Daily Mail: "In a couple of days, tens of times more animals have died than were killed by poaching." According to a blog entry by Terilyn Lemaire, who works at the reserve, they considered blocking off the point where the wildebeest were crossing but then decided "It's nature. And who are we as humans to interfere...