World's Largest Migration of Mammals Discovered in South Sudan

[ahmed07]

A massive herd of animals thought to have been wiped out by decades of civil war in Southern Sudan has survived against the odds and could be one of the largest migrations of large mammals on the planet.

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society delivered that assessment Tuesday, unveiling the results of an aerial survey that revealed the existence of more than 1.2 million antelope, gazelle, elephants and other animals.

"This is wonderful news for the world and Southern Sudan," Wildlife Conservation Society President Steven Sanderson said at a news conference.

Conservationist Michael Fay who conducted the survey said he had never seen wildlife in such numbers, "not even while flying over the mass migrations of the Serengeti."

"This could represent the biggest migration of large mammals on Earth," he said.

However animals in the region remain at risk because hunters still have automatic weapons to decimate herds, said Paul Elkan, director of the group’s Southern Sudan program. Also thousands of refugees are returning to the region and oil exploration is taking place within migration corridors.

A survey of Southern Sudan’s wildlife had not been done since the early 1980s because of civil war that raged for two decades before a peace deal in 2005. A separate civil war erupted in the Darfur region of western Sudan four years ago.

CONSERVATIONISTS STUNNED

Based on experiences in other regions where war ravaged man and animals, such as in Angola and Mozambique, officials said they had believed wildlife in Southern Sudan would also have been badly hit.

Not all areas within Southern Sudan have fared well in preserving wildlife. Southern National Park, situated west of the Nile, experienced an estimated 90 percent loss of some species since the early 1980s.

"We saw no buffalo where in 1981 there were an estimated 60,000," Elkan said. "And only one group of elephants was sighted where some 10,000 had been estimated to roam in the past."

But for reasons yet to be explained, some animal herds remained intact, and in a few instances, actually increased from levels documented in a survey about 25 years ago.

White-eared cob, a species of antelope, numbered 800,000 in Southern Sudan, Fay said, adding that he had been skeptical of anecdotal field reports that said thousands of cob could still be found. "I thought, ’That’s crazy."’

But in January, after an arduous process to get permission, Fay and others replicated a 1980s wildlife survey, flying 150 hours in a small airplane over 58,000 square miles .

It is rare to see large groups of animals in Africa outside protected areas, but once the spotting team’s plane crossed into Southern Sudan from Kenya, Fay said they were stunned.

"It looked like the entire landscape was moving with cob," Fay said. "It was infested. These are 100-kilo antelope. ... If anything we underestimated the number of animals."

(Reuters)

[ahmed07]

here is some pics:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t222/ahmedbagoun/12migration_green.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t222/ahmedbagoun/070612sudan-pictures.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t222/ahmedbagoun/0612tiang_herd1_ELKAN_FAY.jpg

more pics and videos to come.......:)

[9yja]

It's amazing coverage!

[GregPz]

Wow! That's incredible! Absolutely fantastic :)

[Tbite]

I don't get it, if it is such a large Migration why is it only being discovered now?

Or is it to do with Priorities?

[Matthias Offodile]

Ahmed07, Incredible pics!:)

[9yja]

I don't get it, if it is such a large Migration why is it only being discovered now?

Or is it to do with Priorities?
i wonder!when the World is advancing or expanding.maybe i'm wrong:ohno: and that it as to do with the global warming and the inconvenience.

[GregPz]

This has huge tourist potential for this region. What a great story of nature surviving despite the damage man does.

[ahmed07]

I don't get it, if it is such a large Migration why is it only being discovered now?

Or is it to do with Priorities?

bcz it was 2 dangerous during the war. also after the war scientists thought that after the war the wildlife was conmpletely destroyed like in other war torn regions like angola. plus the sudd acted as a barrier as it is almost to cross the sudd on foot.

[ahmed07]

This has huge tourist potential for this region. What a great story of nature surviving despite the damage man does.

yeah, kenya and tanzania are in for alot of trouble.....:lol: .

[ahmed07]

There is also a large migration of two-legged mammals currently going on in western Sudan. They are being pursued by the Janjaweeds.

thats a good reminder....

but at least this is one good news...

[DanteXavier]

Heh, only in Africa. You won't see this type of thing anywhere else on Earth.

Sudan ought to capitalize on this for tourism. Then maybe they can compete a little better with Kenya and Tanzania.

[Bond James Bond]

Another article, with more pictures.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/science/12migr.html

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12sudan-map.jpg

June 12, 2007
In Sudan, an Animal Migration to Rival Serengeti
By CARL ZIMMER

The first aerial survey of southern Sudan in 25 years has revealed vast migrating herds, rivaling those of the Serengeti plains, that have managed to survive 25 years of civil war, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Southern Sudan will announce today at a news conference in New York.

J. Michael Fay, a conservationist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, who has participated in the surveys, said in a telephone interview from Chad that southern Sudan’s herds of more than a million gazelle and antelope may even surpass the Serengeti’s herds of wildebeest, making the newly surveyed migration the largest on earth.

“It’s so far beyond anything you’ve ever seen, you can’t believe it,” Dr. Fay said. “You think you’re hallucinating.”

Southern Sudan, an area of about 225,000 square miles, sits between the Sahara and Africa’s belt of tropical forests. Wildlife biologists have long known that its grasslands, woodlands and swamps were home to elephants, zebras, giraffes and other animals. Before the civil war, an estimated 900,000 white-eared kob (a kind of antelope) had been seen migrating there. But in 1983 wildlife research ground to a halt with the outbreak of civil war.

Rebel fighters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army battled government forces, as well as Arab militias that swept down from the north on horseback. In the next two decades, more than two million people died. In 2005 the Sudanese government and the rebels signed an agreement, establishing the Government of Southern Sudan.

Wildlife biologists could only wonder what happened to Sudan’s animals during that time. Experience has shown that wars can be devastating to wildlife. As peacetime protections collapse, poachers sweep in to kill animals for meat, horn and ivory. Armies shoot game to feed themselves.

“In places like Angola and Mozambique, the parks just got wiped out,” Dr. Fay said. In the 1990s, pilots returning from relief missions to Southern Sudan told bleak stories. “People were saying that wildlife is finished there,” said Paul Elkan, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Southern Sudan Country Program, in a telephone interview from Nairobi. Some species, like the oryx, a long-horned antelope, were thought to have been wiped out.

But signs of hope turned up near the end of the war. Malik Marjan, a Sudanese graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, conducted a ground survey in Boma National Park. He and his colleagues saw healthy populations of white-eared kob.

Last January, Mr. Marjan joined Dr. Fay and Dr. Elkan in the first aerial survey of Southern Sudan in 25 years. On their first day of surveying in Boma, they flew over thousands of white-eared kob. Dr. Fay, who has flown more than 70,000 miles of aerial surveys in Africa, was taken aback. “As soon as we saw that, we said, ‘This place is insane.’ ”

For the next month, Dr. Fay and his colleagues retraced the path of the last aerial surveys before the war. The white-eared kob were joined by hundreds of thousands of mongalla gazelles and tiang, a species of antelope. They formed a gigantic column that stretched 30 miles across and 50 miles long. “It was just solid animals the whole way,” Dr. Fay said.

The biologists estimated there were 1.3 million kob, tiang and gazelle in their survey area. That is close to the size of migrating herds of wildebeest on the Serengeti, long considered the biggest migration of mammals. But Dr. Fay and his colleagues suspected that because they were replicating prewar survey methods, their estimates were low. New survey methods, such as digital photography, were likely to raise it above the Serengeti.

“My personal feeling is that it’s the biggest migration on earth,” Dr. Fay said, “but we just haven’t proved it yet.”

Other animals are also thriving in parts of Southern Sudan, including elephants, ostriches, lions, leopards, hippos and buffalo. Biologists have even spotted oryx, which were thought to be extinct. But some species are faring badly. Southern Sudan used to be home to many zebras. In the 1982 survey, scientists estimated that 20,000 were living in Boma National Park alone. The Wildlife Conservation team found no zebras in Boma at all, and only a few elsewhere.

The scientists also observed that most species suffered badly in the western part of the region. In 1981, about 60,000 buffalo lived in Southern Sudan National Park. Now, Dr. Fay said, “Not one buffalo did we see.”

Geography may explain much of their results. Poachers on horseback could ride into the western part of Southern Sudan, but the Nile River and a giant swamp called the Sudd proved to be an impenetrable shield protecting the eastern region of Southern Sudan.

Migrating animals also fared better than animals that stayed put year-round. “Their wet-season refuge is very isolated, so even if they were heavily hunted in the dry season, they would have a buffer,” Dr. Elkan said.

The survey was conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society in cooperation with the Government of Southern Sudan. The government is already taking steps to protect its wildlife, said Maj. Gen. Alfred Akwoch, undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife Conservation and Tourism. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army is deploying some of its soldiers to protect the parks. “We are training them now with the basic knowledge of wildlife conservation,” General Akwoch said.

It will also be necessary to balance the conservation of wildlife with the economic recovery from the war, Dr. Elkan said. “You have oil exploration in the northern part of the Sudd already,” he said. “Oil permits have already been handed out throughout most of the migratory corridor for the tiang and the white-eared kob.” The government is rebuilding roads and schools, and people are returning to their farms. “This place is hopping,” Dr. Fay said.

Dr. Fay said he thought Southern Sudan could attract eco-tourists in the future. He also plans to use the new survey to lobby donor nations to set aside some of their aid to Southern Sudan for managing natural resources. “I’m going to keep hammering away at these guys that natural resources management is as important for people as it is for keeping elephants alive,” Dr. Fay said. “If we can’t invest in what might be the largest wildlife migration on earth, then we may as well close up shop and go home.”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_elephant.jpg
An elephant herd in the Sudd swamp, which served as protection from poachers.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_shadow.jpg
Herds of oryx.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_road.jpg
A road built by the oil industry in Sudan.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_elk.jpg
Herds of ostrich.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_green.jpg
The biologists estimated there were 1.3 million kob, tiang, a species of antelope, and gazelle in their survey area.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_brown.jpg
A herd of tiang in the Southern sector of Sudan's Boma National Park.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/12/science/12migration_elephant2.jpg
The Boma-Jonglei landscape of Southern Sudan also contains remnant herds of elephants.

[Tbite]

Nice.:cheers:

I smell Tourism. I bet you a Million bucks that in 10 years Sudan will be the U.A.E of Africa. Yeah Sudan.:banana: :cucumber:

[ahmed07]

Nice.:cheers:

I smell Tourism. I bet you a Million bucks that in 10 years Sudan will be the U.A.E of Africa. Yeah Sudan.:banana: :cucumber:

yep.......and with enough oil cash to build the necessary infrastructure kenya is in for real trouble...

[SE9]

This is indeed fantastic news, but Kenya and Tanzania have no reason to be worried.

[ahmed07]

This is indeed fantastic news, but Kenya and Tanzania have no reason to be worried.

actually they should bcz thats another competetior that would crowd the market.........

unless they make an east african tourist packege that would be great....sudan,kenya,ethiopia, and tanzania....:banana:

[9yja]

Sudan is very big to contain them and i can't see them all divert to any country now.

[stoicman31]

Ahmed, why won't you like to see a more viable Kenya and Sudan living side by side. Why are you predicting the rise of one will automatically trigger doom for the other? I don't get it ...with almost all of your posts you seem to be waiting for the collaspe of Kenya.

[ahmed07]

Ahmed, why won't you like to see a more viable Kenya and Sudan living side by side. Why are you predicting the rise of one will automatically trigger doom for the other? I don't get it ...with almost all of your posts you seem to be waiting for the collaspe of Kenya.

read my posts again please.........i said i wish they would make an east africa tourist package so all the east african countries would benefit.

it is obvious that kenya and tanzania would lose some tourists if sudan was to enter the eco-tourism sector bcz east africa is the only major region for such activity.

i never said i want kenya to fall........i just want sudan to surpass it.....its called nationalism.

this is my second post that relates to kenya in SCC...so i wonder where you got that idea from.

[ahmed07]

Sudan is very big to contain them and i can't see them all divert to any country now.

sudan is to big to contain what....:)

[9yja]

sudan is to big to contain what....:)
The incoming mammals.
I can't picture them running more and more deeply into desert.

[ahmed07]

The incoming mammals.
I can't picture them running more and more deeply into desert.

what desert.......:lol:

[9yja]

The incoming mammals.
I can't picture them running more and more deeply into desert.
...northern Sudan...Egypt.

[ahmed07]

...northern Sudan...Egypt.

naija man i thought you knew better.........south sudan is larger than kenya the desert is hundereds of miles up north......:lol: