New Wild Nature Institute Study Describes a Threatened Long-distance Wildebeest Migration Route

• A new study by Wild Nature Institute scientists and colleagues, published this week in the scientific journal Landscape Ecology, describes in detail for the first time an endangered long-distance wildebeest migration in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania.
  
• Wildlife migrations were once widespread globally, but are now mostly lost, and the remaining few migrations are in precipitous decline because of rapid, human-caused changes to the landscapes where they occur.
• The sustainability of the Tarangire wildebeest population is important to the ecological function and economic value of Tarangire National Park, one of the most profitable parks in a country where ecotourism is the #1 dollar earner and largest sector of the economy.

In the study, wildlife scientists used machine learning and connectivity algorithms to delineate a previously undefined migratory corridor in order to save this vanishing natural phenomenon. Dr. Derek Lee, principal scientist at the Wild Nature Institute and senior author of the study said, “From a practical standpoint, we need better tools to understand how animals get from one place to another. Our work shows how data from multiple sources and the latest analytical techniques can be integrated to identify, connect, and protect an ecologically and economically important migratory corridor.”

“Given the growing demands on grazing lands in these migratory landscapes, there is an important need to accurately document core habitat used by migratory wildlife, and then provide this information to the policy makers who decide how land will be managed,” said Dr. Tom Morrison, of the University of Glasgow and co-author of the study. “Conserving migratory habitat for wildebeest will have the added benefits of protecting connectivity of rangelands used by Masai pastoralists and their livestock, and will benefit other wildlife species in this ecosystem, as they all use these habitats to move and graze.”

DOWNLOAD THE MIGRATION ARTICLE