🌍🌾 WILDLIFE SUCCESS STORY: The Wildebeest That Helped Restore the Serengeti
Sometimes restoring a single species can help restore an entire ecosystem.
The blue wildebeest is a keystone species of Africa’s Serengeti grasslands. During the mid-20th century, disease spread from livestock reduced its population to about 300,000 animals. Without enough wildebeest grazing the landscape, vegetation accumulated, fueling enormous wildfires that burned as much as 80% of the ecosystem each year.
Then something remarkable happened.
Disease-control efforts allowed wildebeest numbers to recover to more than 1.5 million. As the herds returned, their grazing reduced excess vegetation and helped bring the grasslands back into balance. Within less than a decade, the Serengeti went from releasing carbon dioxide to once again functioning as an important carbon sink.
Today, roughly 1.5 million blue wildebeest participate in the spectacular Great Migration, joined by hundreds of thousands of other grazing animals.
🌱 The bigger lesson: Every ecosystem is built on connections. Protecting and restoring a keystone species can create benefits that ripple across an entire landscape—from healthier grasslands and wildlife habitat to greater carbon storage.
Restore the species. Restore the connections. Restore the ecosystem.
Read the full article: https://www.oneearth.org/species-of-the-week-blue-wildebeest/
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