THE SERENGETI’S MOST IMPORTANT
ANIMAL IS THE WILDEBEEST, AN
AWKWARD-LOOKING ANTELOPE
WHOSE AGE-OLD MIGRATION DRIVES
A COMPLEX CIRCLE OF LIFE.
T
THE LINE APPEARED on the
horizon as a gray thread
on a pale green quilt, but
as the plane flew closer, it
became a column of a few hundred
animals, winding across the plain.
“Wildebeest,” Charlie shouted over
the drone of the engine. “It’s a small
group.” We were north of Tanzania’s
Ngorongoro Crater, and since it was
March, we knew the wildebeests would
soon be moving northwest, up through
Serengeti National Park and into Kenya.
And there they were, in a perfectly
straight, nose-to-tail convoy. I could
make out their curved horns and long
heads nodding up and down as they
trudged through the morning sun.
Several calves pressed against their
mothers’ flanks.
For thousands of years, wildebeest