The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa's Last Great Herds

This is good preparation for a trip to the Serengeti. It will help you know what to look for, and to better appreciate what you are seeing. I read it shortly after returning from the Serengeti. I found it added to my appreciation of the trip, and added to my knowledge of the current conditions confronting the wildlife in the region. It has useful sidebars of a page or less related to other great migrations of the world. This adds an additional useful dimension. The book is probably written with adolescent readers in mind but I'm a retired adult and did not feel it was writing down to me at all. So I would conclude that this is a good survey of the migration phenomenon in the Serengeti, with special focus on the wildebeest. The photos are also good and help support the narrative. Worth having for anyone planning a trip, or as a memento after returning.

The author, a naturalist, shares her journey to the Serengeti to experience the mass migration of wildebeests. Among her guides is the biologist, Dr. Richard Estes, who has been studying antelope species, including gnus, for over 50 years. The gnu migration is the largest mass migration of land animals. It is not a simple north/south, east/west migration, but a circular and continuous mass movement. There were times when the author and her fellow travelers could not find the migration and other times when they found themselves in the midst of the migration. The author includes an index of terms, a selected bibliography, the web adresses of various organizations to protect and preserve the Serengeti and magnificent colored photos of the landscape and animals. This reviewer is left with three major observations.First, the gnu is a very social animal. The notion of a herd is rather fluid and sometimes a wildebeest will find himself amidst a herd of "stanger" wildebeests. Traveling with the gnus are other herbivores like zebras and elands as well as predators including lions, hyenas and vultures ready to pick off the young, the injured and the old. It is estimated that over 28 different species participate in the wildebeest migration. The area of the Serengeti covers over 25,000 square miles across both Kenya and Tanzania. The wildebeest needs to migrate not only to find food and water, but also for mating and maintaining a hierarchy of dominance among the males. The migration also maintains the Serengeti for as the herbivores eat different types of grasses, excrete the seeds back in the ground, and churn-up and fertilize the soil with urine and dung, the grasses are renewed for future migrations. For the predators, the migrating herbivores provide an important element in their food chain.Second, humans have had a negative impact on both the Serengeti and the wildebeest migration. Since 1900, the Serengeti has shrunk by 40%. Therefore, there are less resources to go around. The encroachment of human residences as well as the work of poachers and game hunters affects the wildlife of Africa as a whole. Poaching snares snag animals in the wild to the tune of 200,000 deaths a year. Though there are patrols to catch the poachers, it is a never ending game of cat and mouse because the area is so vast. Human created climate change has altered the rainy and dry seasons. Though it was mentioned that fewer and smaller gnu calves are born, the author did not elaborate on how this was affecting the overall wildebeest population. The amount of eco-tourism has also affected the Serengeti. The author noted the line-up of vehicles with tourists observing mainly lions and elephants, but this traffic also has an affect upon the ease and route of the wildebeest migration.Finally, interspersed among her discussions of the gnu migration, the author included pictures and narrative of other organisms that migrate like the loggerhead sea turtle and the monarch butterfly. This information was interesting, but seemed irrelevant to the migration of the gnus. Despite these "forays off the beaten track" of the gnus, this travelogue was highly informative.

I’m in love with the way Sy sees the world. Her respect and love for animals soothes my heart and makes me hopeful that by her sharing her compassion will influence others to be kind. I 5 star her Octopus and Good good pig book because they are more personal, but I learned a lot in this book.

This book, while informative, IS NOT a book for children under the age of 12. It was advertised otherwise.

I really enjoyed this book especially because I returned myself from a recent safari to Kenya and Tanzania just 3 months ago. I was able to witness everything this author saw on her game drives, including the migration of the wildebeests. It was nice to have someone put into words what I experienced.