Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem

Assembled from 51 blocks · 1 evidence · 42 related

1. Story
2. Mass vaccination of cattle, which had acted as the reservoir, removed rinderpest from the ecosystem by about 1964. The virus had suppressed wildebeest and buffalo numbers for decades; its removal released the constraint and set up the population irruption that follows.
3. Knowledge
4. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
5. Serengeti National Park
6. Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
7. Connections
8. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
9. Serengeti National Park
10. Serengeti–Mara Rainfall Gradient
11. Thomson's Gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii)
12. Western Corridor and Grumeti Reserves
13. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
14. Serengeti National Park
15. Southern Serengeti Short-Grass Plains
16. Mara River
17. Plains Zebra (Equus quagga)
18. Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)
19. Spotted Hyena (Crocuta crocuta)
20. Serengeti Biodiversity Programme
21. Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
22. The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million
23. Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population
24. The Mara–Loita migration collapses by about 81%
25. Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
26. The rut
27. The calving pulse on the short-grass plains
28. The herds cross the Grumeti River in the western corridor
29. The Mara River crossings
30. TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest
31. AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested
32. Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)
33. Maasai Mara National Reserve
34. Mara River
35. Serengeti–Mara Rainfall Gradient
36. Serengeti Biodiversity Programme
37. Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
38. The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million
39. Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
40. Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population
41. Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
42. The Mara River crossings
43. TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest
44. AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested
45. Ngorongoro Conservation Area
46. Maasai
47. Fortress conservation
48. Serengeti National Park established on land used by Maasai pastoralists
49. Serengeti closed to residence; Ngorongoro Conservation Area created and Maasai evicted from the plains
50. Evidence
51. Dry-season food supply, not predation, regulates the Serengeti wildebeest population — demonstrated across the post-rinderpest irruption, the 1977–1993 plateau and the 1993–94 drought die-off