My Science School

Located on the border between the African countries of Kenya and Tanzania, the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania's Serengeti plain spans an area of nearly 15,000 sq.km. The grassland and woodland savannah of the region, interspersed with rivers, is home to several species of animals such as cheetah, wildebeest, and zebra, and the threatened black rhinoceros. Set up in 1951, the Park attracts tourists from across the globe throughout the year for not just its diverse wildlife but also for hosting one of the most significant land animal migrations. It is one of the largest and the most diverse places in the world to witness the coming together of a large number of predator and prey. The Serengeti National Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site of "outstanding universal value in 1981.

Wildlife

In addition to carnivores such as lions, leopards, cheetahs, and crocodiles, and herbivores such as wildebeest, gazelles and zebras, one can spot wild dogs, topis, warthogs, antelopes, elephants, giraffes, African buffaloes, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and baboons within the periphery of the Park. The Park also nurtures a few hundred species of both resident and visiting birds. They include ostriches, grebes, pelicans, cormorants, darters, bitterns, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, spoonbills, flamingoes, teals, ducks, geese, shovelers, pochards, vultures, harriers, eagles, hawks, kites, kestrels, falcons, quails, francolins, crakes, coots, moorhens, bustards, jacanas, snipes, sandpipers, plovers, terns, gulls, sandgrouses, doves, turacos, nightjars, swifts, kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, hoopoes, hornbills, barbets, woodpeckers, larks, swallows, martins, orioles, babblers, shrikes, robins, wheatears, warblers, flycatchers, pipits, weavers, starlings, and sunbirds.

Did you know?

• Every year, more than 10 lakh wildebeest, along with thousands of other herbivores and ungulates such as zebra and gazelle, go on a 1,000-km circuitous journey between the Park in Tanzania and Kenya's Masai Mara Game Reserve. The migration sees the animals moving to greener pastures in Kenya during the dry season in Serengeti. Throughout the migration, several adults and newborns perish to predators such as crocodiles, lions, and cheetah, but much more survive to keep the world's most astounding spectacle alive.
• The Park faces threats due to natural causes such as wildfires, and human-related issues such as excessive tourism, water management, poaching, etc. For instance, a recent study that had studied the region over a long period of time found that due to increasing human activity on the boundary, animals congregate increasingly in the core of the protected area. And this is not good news because such a concentration could lead to depletion of natural resources such as plant and water, and even lead to extreme drought.
• While the large numbers of animals migrating to the region is fantastic news, monitoring something of this magnitude requires a lot of time and labour. Recently, a “research team testing the capacity of both citizen scientists and machine learning algorithms to help survey the annual wildebeest migration in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania found that both methods could produce accurate animal counts, a boon for park managers”.
• African wild dogs disappeared from the Park around 1991-1992, and several reasons-from rabies and canine distemper diseases to encroachment of farming activity into their habitats have been attributed to the disappearance. Around 2012, a few packs were re-introduced to the region, and some of them even gave birth to young ones.

Picture Credit : Google

Situated in the central part of the Indonesian archipelago, the Komodo National Park spans an area of 2,00,000 hectares. A UNESCO World Heritage Site of Outstanding Universal Value, it is home to about 5000 Komodo dragons. As the only place in the world today with these lizards, the area has been of particular interest to both the scientific community and curious tourists. Once found in Australia too, these lizards are said to have thrived in their current home for millions of years now.

Wildlife

Though most noted for Komodo dragons, the park nurtures other wildlife too. Among the more than 70 species of birds spotted in the area are cockatoos, jungle fowl, kestrels, herons, thick-knees, doves, sunbirds, finches, drongos, Orioles, scrub fowl, and friarbirds. The waters around the boundary of the Park nurture several species of whales such as sperm whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and the endangered dugong also known as sea cow.

The “Jurassic Park” problem

Last October while several parts of the world were still grappling with COVID-19 and the destruction it left in its wake, a photo from the park went viral. What did it show? A Komodo dragon facing a truck. What was a truck doing in such an eco-sensitive region? This needs a bit of a history. In 2019, a controversial decision to close the Park was dropped after collective outrage. Soon after that came another piece of news. That the government would end mass tourism by imposing a heavily priced membership scheme to enter the park. “But around the same time they also unveiled plans for a mass tourist development on neighbouring Rinca Island, which is home to the second-largest population of Komodo dragons.” And this project has been dubbed “Jurassic park“, which is where Komodo dragon had an unexpected encounter with that truck. Concerned conservationists have raised questions over the need for such a project, worried that this move will ruin the natural habitat of the world’s largest lizard. A damaged natural environment will eventually affect its habitants too, meaning the Komodo dragons could be in peril if the project is completed. Though it has been said that the project has been stopped, media reports suggest that the project may not have been dropped but only paused for now.

Did you know?

• The world’s largest and heaviest lizards, these reptiles can grow up to 10 feet, weigh more than £300 and live up to 30 years in the wild.
• Going by their diet, they are hearty eaters –it is said that in one go, these giants can consume nearly 80% of their body weight. The carnivore’s diet includes everything from deer and pigs to water buffaloes and sometimes even smaller comes from its own species!
• Poaching and human encroachment are only two of the reasons that could lead to a decline in the population of these lizards.
• As with the most habitats the world over, climate change is unlikely to spare this region either. While resultant intense wildfires can directly alter the habitat of the Komodo dragon, storms threaten to cause extensive damage to corals and the reefs in the waters surrounding the archipelago.

Picture Credit : Google