September 1964. One of the things I remember from my first day as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ngorongoro Crater were the reactions of Henry Fosbrooke, conservator of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and John Goddard, a Canadian wildlife biologist, to tourist vehicles tightly clustered around animals of interest, such as lions.

“Why don’t they stay on the main tracks?” Henry complained. “There’s quite enough off-track driving going on. It’s wearing down the grass and disfiguring the crater floor. I must talk with our guides about this.” John wasn’t pleased either. “Crowding the animals makes them edgy.”

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika.

That year, 12,137 tourists visited Ngorongoro. In 2018, over half a century later, the amount was closer to three quarters of a million. If Henry and John were worried about the impact of tourists on the crater’s environment and wildlife then, I wonder how they would feel now.

Not that I blame people for wanting to visit the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, for there is much to see. Here are some examples:

Lions. Tourist vehicles were most apt to crowd around the big cats, of which lions are both the largest, and usually easiest to find. And who wouldn’t want to see one, for the lion is the epitome of ferocity, the King of the Beasts lording it atop the food chain. Even from a distance, the large carnivore’s booming, moaning roars have a way of concentrating one’s attention, especially when sleeping in the fragile protection of a tent.

Ngorongoro Crater has long been considered one of the best places on earth to see lions. In 1975, at 125 animals, it contained one of the densest populations in Africa. As of 2014, however, only 55 lions, comprising four prides, ruled the crater. Unfortunately, the lions of Ngorongoro Crater have a problem. Back in the early 1960’s most of them died, weakened by a plague of Stomoxys biting flies. Although the population subsequently grew, so few new lions entered the crater to replenish the gene pool over the next three decades that the crater’s lions became inbred. Immigration of new lions into the crater apparently has always been rare. However, a growing belt of Maasai communities may have exacerbated the situation by detering movement of lions between plains and crater (Maasai warriors kill lions to protect their livestock; they also once did it to prove their manhood.) This is one of the reasons why the Ngorongoro Conservaton Area Authority (NCAA) worries about the impact of an increasing human population on wildlife conservation (See MAASAI PASTORALISTS OF NGORONGORO: AS THEY ARE NOW). That said, however, KopeLion https://www.KopeLion.org and The Lion Recovery Fund, https://www.lionrecoveryfund have recently had some success in improving the relationship between lions and the Maasai.

Wildebeests. High-shouldered, broad-muzzled, and with cow-like horns and spindly legs, the wildebeest, or gnu, will ever win a beauty contest. (That said, I must admit to the cuteness of gnu calves.)

In compensation, the wildebeest has a comical personality best displayed when, for instance, one of the funny looking animals cavorts about, kicking it’s heels in the air, or again, when sparring males drop to their front knees and butt heads with their hind ends in the air. Then, there’s those bleating grunts–ngggh. . . ngggh. . . ngggh–which sound like the large antelopes have sinus problems. (The name, gnu, might come from an approximation of that sound. However, the Swahili word for wildebeest is Nyumbu.)

The most spectacular wildebeest population in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) comprises the over a million animals of the migratory Serengeti herds which visit the eastern Serengeti Plains in the rainy season to graze nutritious forage and give birth.

The wildebeest population in Ngorongoro Crater contains both resident and migratory animals. Thus, about 7,000 wildebeests are present throughout the year, blending in with a similar number of other ungulates, larger mammals, such as rhinos, and predators. (The present wildebeest population is about half what it was in the 1960’s. This is because removal of Maasai cattle from the crater, combined with a ban on setting grass fires, reduced wildebeest numbers by encouraging taller grass, a habitat more conducive to buffaloes.)

The year-round presence of wildebeests in Ngorongoro Crater strongly contrasts with that on the Serengeti Plains where the migratory herds provide an overwhelming visual impact in the wet season but are completely absent during the five-month dry season. In fact, few ungulates of any kind use the plains in the dry season.

Black rhinos. While only half the size of an 1,750,000-year-old ancestor discovered by archeologists at Oldupai Gorge, the black rhino is still a heavy animal, weighing in at about a ton. However, as it is able to gallop at 30 mph (50 kph), and turn in its own length, it is a surprisingly nimble large animal.

The rhino’s inability to distinguish a motionless object beyond 15 yards (14 meters) may explain why, rather than charge a perceived threat, it’s more apt to snort loudly and, tail looped over its rump, trot away. Even its “charges” tend to be more impulsive and confused than aggressive. I once experienced this when, while rapidly retreating from what I thought was a charging rhino, I tripped and fell flat on my face only to find my presumed pursuer trot past fifty or so feet away.

Rhinos also can become habituated to the presence of humans. I remember one, named Horace, who was fast asleep when Henry, John, and I visited him that first day in the crater, and stayed that way as we ate lunch a few feet away.

The only signs of activity from Horace, other than heavy breathing, came from several yellow-beaked tick birds (ox peckers) that hopped and fluttered about as they poked into nooks and crannies of his body in search of ticks.

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika.

Non-habituated rhinos, however, can be dangerous. For instance, when Horace first appeared in the crater, he vigorously charged everything in sight. John and I barely escaped the wrath of an angry female, who only managed to bump our Land Rover as we sped away. A colleague encountering a grumpy rhino in the Serengeti National Park, did not escape so easily, the big animal hooking it’s horns under his Land Rover’s fender and banging the vehicle up and down several times before disengaging, leaving the fender looking like it had been holed by artillery shells.

Sadly, the black rhino, as it is elsewhere in Africa, is the most threatened large mammal in the NCA. Intensive poaching wiped out the entire Oldupai Gorge population of 70 animals by the 1980’s and reduced their numbers in Ngorongoro Crater from over 100 in the late 1960’s to a mere 12 in 1996. Subsequently, however, a program of intensive monitoring and protection carried out by the NCAA and Frankfurt Zoological Society, increased the population to 30 by 2017. Yet another problem is that, as with the crater’s lions, its rhinos also may be genetically isolated and inbred. This has been partially addressed by the translocation into the crater of two female rhinos.

Nonetheless, the black rhinos of Ngorongoro Crater continue to be a major tourist attraction.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Ashley Maberley, C.T. 1962. Animals of East Africa. Howard Timmons, Cape Town.

Estes, R.D. 1991. The Behavior Guide to African Animals. The University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: the Eighth Wonder. Andre Deutsch, London.

Ham, A. 2017. The Lions of Ngorongoro: A Remarkable Tale of Survival hips://www.afktravel.com.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. 1966. General Management Plan. Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

Oates, L. & P.A. Rees. 2013. The Historical Ecology of the Large Mammal Populations of Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, East Africa. Mammal Review 43 (2013) 124-141.