Serengeti's Modern History

"Serengeti" comes from the word 'siringet' which in the Maasai language means a great open space, a place where the land goes on forever. Until just 100 years ago only Maasai herdsmen and a few hunter-gatherers knew of the existence of these great game-filled plains. Continue bellow...

More on modern history of Serengeti

The first European to see the Serengeti was probably the German explorer Baumann. In March 1892, his caravan broke out of the Oldeani Highland Forest to find themselves on the rim of that great extinct crater Ngorongoro 12 miles in diameter, 2000' deep and filled with a great array of wildlife. Baumann explored the crater and then made his way north and west to the Serengeti plains themselves. At this time the combined ravages of rinderpest, which had wiped out their cattle, smallpox and locusts had depopulated large areas of this region and the Maasai were starving and in a desperate condition.

In the early 1900's collectors and hunters, like James Clarke of the American Museum of Natural History and Stewart Edward White, explored the area, and it is interesting that they recorded very few buffalo and no elephant in areas where these species now abound. But it was lions that brought the hunters to the Serengeti. The big cats were classed as vermin and could be shot at will. More and more hunters came to the area and by the 1920's it was not uncommon for a safari to kill up to 50 lions. Fortunately, around this time the Government started to take an interest and to pass legislation to protect the area. Between 1921 and 1930 a series of laws were passed protecting more and more of the Serengeti area. Hunting was prohibited in the crater, it was still allowed in the Serengeti but only on licence.

In 1935 the killing of lions was completely prohibited in the Banagi and Seronera areas of the Serengeti and two years later many other major species were given similar protection. In 1940, a Game Ordinance was enacted that enabled the Government to declare any area a National Park, but due to World War II nothing was done until 1948 when a new National Parks Ordinance came in to being. Three years later, on June 1st 1951, the Serengeti was finally declared a National Park.