The Maasai Mara National Reserve is located in southwest Kenya and is a vast picturesque expanse of gently rolling African savannah plains. It is one of the most famous and important wildlife conservation and wilderness areas in Africa, world-renowned for its exceptional populations of lion, leopard, cheetah, and African bush elephant. Together with the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, it forms Africa’s most diverse, extraordinary, and spectacular ecosystems and possibly the world’s top safari big game viewing ecosystem.
It also hosts the Great Migration, which secured it as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa, and as one of the Ten Wonders of the World. The Great Migration is the largest movement of animals on the planet. Numbers vary annually, but it is estimated that herd sizes can reach 1.5 million wildebeest, not to mention just under a million zebras, topi, and eland. Waves of zebras arrive first, mowing through the tall, coarse grass stems that shot up during the rains and exposed the green leafy grasses preferred by the wildebeests following behind them.
The herds travel 800 kilometers clockwise in a circle through the Serengeti and Maasai Mara ecosystems in search of greener, mineral-rich pastures and water. The animals spend most of the cycle in the Serengeti in Tanzania but also spend several months trekking the bountiful plains of the Maasai Mara.
As the herds of wildebeest, zebras, and gazelles enter the Maasai Mara they are met by more than their fair share of death-dealing predators. Aside from the threat of the big cats, the lemming-like herds are also faced with over 3000 crocodiles lurking in the murky waters of the Mara River during their river crossing. Watching the herds blindly jump from riverbank ledges and into the river waters is spectacular, to say the least. Eventually, the massive herds are rewarded with spoils of the wide-open Maasai Mara plains. For a short while, life is good. When the food supply dwindles and the rains move on, so do the herds.