If you’ve watched The Lion King, you probably remember the scene where Mufasa falls into and is trampled by a massive herd of stampeding wildebeests. In real life, as one of the largest mammal migrations in the world, it’s as hectic as it is on the screen. However, a recent AI-powered satellite survey found that the actual number of wildebeests migrating across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem might not be as high as the million-plus figure widely cited for the past half-century. A study published in the journal PNAS Nexus described how a team of scientists used satellite imagery and deep-learning models to find there were “fewer than 600,000 individuals — approximately half the widely cited estimate of 1.3 million wildebeest, which has remained largely unchanged since the 1970s.” “We’re not trying to say that there’s 700,000 that have died or that they’re missing,” Isla Duporge, one of the lead authors of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University in the U.S., told Mongabay in a video interview. “We were surprised to find so many fewer compared to findings from aerial surveys. We’re just opening up the question as to why different methods are producing rather different results.” Wildebeests, along with zebras and other animals, follow the rains and migrate in a circular path through Kenya and Tanzania. They travel 800 kilometers (500 miles) during each cycle in pursuit of areas with better food and grass. The migration is crucial for the ecosystem as the animals fertilize the soil while…This article was originally published on Mongabay


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