First drowning of the season

July 29, 2017 - 6:56am by Anonymous (not verified)

We recently published 5 years of research on wildebeest mass drownings in the Mara River. We plan to continue studying this phenomenon for the foreseeable future, both to document the occurrence and size of the drownings and to continue understanding their influence on the river ecosystem. On July 19, 500 wildebeest were crossing the Mara River near the lower bridge, and 150 drowned. This is a relatively small drowning compared to some others we have seen and compared to the annual mean of 6,250 we have documented over the years. However, we’re still early in the migration season, and the river has been unseasonably low, making it easy for the wildebeest to cross without incident. So, we’ll see… We’re in the field until the end of the migration in November, so we’ll keep count.