Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)

node · earth · Serengeti–Mara ecosystem

A large grazing bovid whose western Serengeti–Mara population performs the largest surviving terrestrial mammal migration. The TAWIRI 2023 Aerial Point Survey estimated 1,366,109 animals (95% interval approximately 1,134,368–1,597,850), consistent with the roughly 1.3 million figure aerial surveys have returned since the 1970s. An independent 2022–2023 AI satellite survey (Duporge et al., PNAS Nexus 2025) counted fewer than 600,000, a result that specialists including Grant Hopcraft and Joseph Ogutu have publicly disputed as an abundance estimate. The species as a whole is assessed Least Concern by the IUCN (2016), a global status that says nothing about the migratory behaviour, which is the thing actually at risk.