Wildebeest migration & the dwindling Mara River

This evening's episode of 60 Minutes featured the wildebeest migration from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Maasai Mara in Kenya. Eye Witness Travel: Kenya reports that the annual migration involves up to 2.5 million animals over approximately 40,000 square miles (DK: London, 2009, pp. 124-125).

According to 60 Minutes, this is the last of the migrations of this magnitude in existence involving mammals -- with possibly only butterflies comparing in number. The migration is at risk due to the diminution of the Mara River as a result of deforestation.

The wildebeest are likely to be traveling north in Tanzania while we are in Kenya such that we'll miss this spectacle. It is a pleasure to see the event recorded, at least, and edifying to have some emerging sense of the environmental issues faced in East Africa.

Claudia Daggett

Video credit:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6646126n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.2