The lost migration

I head out on vacation tomorrow for a month, which gives me a good chunk of time to visit friends and family in the states. But it is also mid-February, the typical time of year for one of the great spectacles of the African animal kingdom: the Serengeti calving season. The migration of 1.5 million wildebeest gives birth to roughly 500,000 calves over a synchronized 2-3 week period in February or March on the southeastern plains. So I planned to take five days to go up to the Serengeti and see it for myself.

Then I got this message from our operations manager in Arusha: "it seems that the wildebeest have left [the southeastern plains], and no one is really sure where they are." Which really begs the question, how do you lose more than a million funny-looking creatures on short grass plains that stretch from horizon to horizon?

Being the animal kingdom, it's quite easy really. And who knows? Maybe they will be found by the time I get there. So I'll head up to the Serengeti and make the most of it. There will surely be plenty to see even if not a single wildebeest is to be found.