Talk:Serengeti

Notes

The correct spelling of the Oldupai Gorge might be a point for dispute. Most people know it as the Olduvai Gorge which is nothing but incorrect. Oldupai is the Massai name for the sisal plant which is found there and that is why it is called the Oldupai Gorge. Anybody who has been on a Safari in Serengeti would know this since the rangers there make sure to explain the correct name. --Durst 10:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

isn't this the exact same article as the article entitled "the serengeti" correct me if i am wrong. -- rburp

Even though the correct spelling of Sisal after which the gorge is named is Oldupai, the spelling in common usage to describe the gorge itself is Olduvai (even on the official signs of the NCAA) as the mistake has now been going on for so long that it is senseless to try to correct it. As such it may be worth while to note the original and 'correct' spelling but still use the 'v' spelling. Non of us living in Tanzania would ever spell it as Oldupai. Maa was not a written language until recently which is how the difficulty arose in the first place, for example the correct spelling of Serengeti as in fact 'Siringit'. Merurider 19:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge

Merging this article with Serengeti National Park sounds like a stupid idea, because one is a region, and the other is a park. They are not the same. --Avochelm 09:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree, Serengeti is a district in Mara Region, Tanzania. The article should be re-writtin as such. --DelftUser 20:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually Serengeti District article already exists. This article, on the other hand, treats geographic Serengeti region, which is neither a National park nor a district (or any other administrative division). Thus this article should stand as it is.

Agree: The Serengeti Migration is one of the seven modern wonders of the world. I wouldn't have found it under the Serengeti National Park. It is an action not a place.

Disagree: First of all, why does one name it "a stupid idea" to merge articles if the Serengeti National Park is half of the total Serengeti area (15.000 km^2 compared to total 30.000 km^2). Thus, things that happen within the National Park are highly connected with the whole Serengeti area. At least there should be a link to the National Park in the article, but there is none!. Furthermore, how come the article mentions not once the names Bernhard and Michael Grzimek (I know the one about the Serengeti National Park does mention their work). They were the first to accurately describe the migration of Gnus, Zebras, etc. which was discovered within the National Park (even got an Oscar for their movie Serengeti Shall Not Die). The only movie reference to the migration is to Africa:_The_Serengeti which was released much later (1994). I strongly suggest to update references and/or merge parts with the Serengeti National Park article. These topics cannot just be disconnected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.111.158.228 (talk) 11:47, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Made some editorial changes to the first paragraph. The previous was kind of confusing when you first looked at it. --L.J.Brooks 4:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree: The article itself answers the question: "The Serengeti region contains the Serengeti National Park." If the two topics were to be merged, the section on the park should be a subsection of this one. However, I believe that the two articles should stay as they are, separate but linked as related topics.

I feel that the article needs to be expanded upon, cleaned up, and made better. Then at the top we add a link to a DAB page that offers the District and the NP. This article should contain a small section with an overview of the NP, and have a link to the main Serengeti NP article. --MPD01605 01:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no region called "Serengeti" in Tanzania, the Serengeti NP covers area in both Mara and Shinyanga Regions. There is a District called Serengeti District in Mara Region. "Serenegti" is sometimes used to describe an indistinct 'area' in Tanzania, but such a description has no place in an encyclopedia as it can never be defined. One remedy might be to create an article called "Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem" - a term used by many conservationists to describe the area utilised by the annual wildebeest and zebra migration, encompassing an area ranging across both Tanzania and Kenya, including 3 regions, several different districts and 5 protected areas. Such a definition relies not on administrative boundaries but biological ones. This article is inaccurate and misleading and should not be merged into Serengeti National Park but deleted altogether or extensively re-written. Merurider 19:40, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

This should be renamed to Serengeti Plain. From [1]

"An area of northern Tanzania bordering on Kenya and Lake Victoria. It is internationally well-known for its extensive wildlife preserve."

The Plain is one thing, the Park is another, and the District is a third. Simple. If the Park article is small enough, it should go into the Plain article. --MPD01605 19:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Update of Serengeti National Park article

Since the main consencus above seemed to be not merging the two articles i have extensively updated the Serengeti National Park article which was suggested as being merged into here. I am also happy to update this article to refer to Serengeti District (which is where most links point) which is the only truly definable distinction between the 2 articles. I did this as the main interest is in the national park rather than the district.

Hopefully the edit is helpful and hasn't trodden on any toes.

Merurider 17:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hi. New to this, but I was looking at the Serengeti page and someone is taking the mick: Serengeti is an African word and has nothing to do with Wales as far as I am aware. Can anyone wwho knows what they are doing have a look at the entry and edit it appropriately? Oh and one of the references calls a pop-up.

User = Sean Waters Sean Waters 18:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Images

We need to see where the serengeti is, and what it look like. Kevlar67 13:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Lion King

Although most sources that I could find state merely that Disney artists went to "Africa", there is no doubt that they went to the Serengeti. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photographs of the rock outcroppings that are interspersed across the plains. The baboa trees seen in the "flim" are seen frequently on the main road into the Serengeti from Arusha. If anyone wants to look at the Lion King dvd, you may find a special feature where they talk about this in greater depth. I hope to have time to do more work on this article in the near future. Steve Pastor 21:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

copy of material recently replaced

The Serengeti is a 60,000 square kilometer savanna which lies over Tanzania. The Serengeti straddles the Tanzanian Kenyan border. This means that this reference is incorrect. Perhaps the author of this article was writing about the Park only??? Also, there are a number of different habitats, which will be put into the article. Again, I believe a journal article from Africa may be more accurate than one from "The New Scientist". More to come. Steve Pastor (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like the content was incorrectly changed in this edit: http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Serengeti&diff=159211373&oldid=157250099. I think your edits are improvements. -SpuriousQ (talk) 09:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Good to know someone is checking things out! Steve Pastor (talk) 21:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

References

Any maps?

A map of the area would greatly help in appreciating its geographical location relative to the continent of Africa.—Tetracube (talk) 00:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC) Sigh. Had a map once, got deleted from article in vandalism. Then deleted from common a week later. Will try to remember and reload, etc. What a pain. Steve Pastor (talk) 16:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

{{geodata-check}} The coordinates need the following fixes:

• Actual Coordinates 2° 19′ 51″ S, 34° 50′ 0″ E

Decimal -2.330833, 34.833333

138.250.83.90 (talk) 12:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

In need of renovation...

I've just looked over both this and the Serengeti National Park articles. I made a few quick changes to this article, because some of the information was just plain wrong. There's a lot of uncited, or incorrectly cited material in here, some of which was jsut wrong - For example, I cut the bit that implied Ol Donyo Lengai is responsible for the hard pan beneath the plains, despite an apparent citation. I don't believe that citation makes this claim at all as the mountain is only 370000 years old, and, e.g., the Laitoli footprints (in the hard pan) are about 2.7MYA. It's well known this comes from the crater highlands instead.

I didn't waste much time working on this article, because I'm still not sure how this should be related to the National Park page. I agree it's different, but I'd feel much happier calling the region the Serengeti/Mara Ecosystem and having a page for that - the ecosystem defined by the movements of the wildebeest migration. It would be perfectly reasonable to have a dismbiguation page for those searching for Serengeti - one pointing to the District, one to the National Park and one pointing to the (wider) ecosystem, but I don't think it would be sensible to name the ecosystem page simply Serengeti - the Kenyan's might not like the implication, and there's already a perfectly good term for the ecosystem. Until I just put the links in now there was no obvius link between this page and the Serengeti National Park page, or vice versa.

If I were doing that, I think I'd just plogh in and instead of trying to tidy things up from where they are (it's too much of a mess for me), I'd plunge throguh and take the information and links from The Serengeti Story History and The Serengeti Story Great Migration. I wrote those posts and am perfectly happy with the work being written suitably for Wikipedia too. But before I do such a radical job I wanted to sound people out over here. I'd also suggest adding a section on ecology to the national park page which essentially points to the serengeti/mara ecosystem page for more details.

Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmbird1 (talk • contribs) 07:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Any revisions should be supported by listed references. If you are going to remove or substanitally change things with a reference, you should ideally have more than one reference. Then there is the whole which is the better reference deal, but we can cross that bridge...Steve Pastor (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Is it ˌsɛrənˈɡɛti or ˌsɛrəŋˈɡɛti?71.213.20.90 (talk) 19:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

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etymology

Our claim is that it's from the Maasai serengit 'endless plains'. But Payne & Ole-Kotikash's dictionary used as a ref (before I removed it) does not support the claim -- indeed, the only hit is for "Serengeti" as a proper noun, presumably a loan word. The other ref is a travel guide, which is not a RS for such things (if it's a RS for anything at all). We need a ref that actually shows the etymology, if one exists. — kwami (talk) 20:19, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the sourcing for this claim is questionable, though there is plenty of sourcing to support that fact that people say this is the etymology. The dictionary does provide "áŋátá" for "plain" which has the right consonants to sort of a little sound like "ngeti" if preceded by some kind of adjective meaning "endless". So the etymology doesn't seem completely implausible to me. But it also doesn't seem well-supported, especially since I can't find any kind of plausible adjective to go before "áŋátá" (and even if I could that would definitely be original research). I'll make a bold change for now but it would be great to find a source that directly addresses the etymology. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 20:42, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

The Richmond dictionary also gives "o-ngota" and "i-ngot" for plain, so it's hard to dispute that as the second root. Plausible sources for "sere-" from the Payne-Kotikash dictionary may include "sɛ́rɛ́" (North), "sérè" (goodbye), "sérò" (dry gray / unreliable), "o-sérò" (bush / scrub / forest), and "sʉ́ráí/sʉra" (wood; "o-sero/i-seroi" in the Richmond dictionary). In the absence of other sources, it may be valid to question the popular etymology, but to say it "does not appear in" those dictionaries seems too strong, discounting even the unambiguous "plain" element. Agkcrbs (talk) 20:45, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone else has looked at this, but in Myles Turner's "My Serengeti Years", on page 24, he writes "Visitors to the park would often ask about the origin of the beautiful word 'Serengeti'. It is definitely a Maasai name, but it has been changed by both Swahili and English. Originally it was Siringet, but the English rendered it Serenget and the Kiswahili language added the final 'i'. The word itself appears to be taken from Siringitu Meaning 'tending to extend', and is closely related another Maasai word 'siriri' Meaning straight or elongated. Either way, the sense of space is clear: the place where the land runs on for ever." Wernid (talk) 10:55, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

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Popular culture section...

This section reads: "Serengeti is mentioned in a 1982 single "Africa" by Toto. The lyrics erroneously describe Kilimanjaro as being located near the Serengeti."

It seems though that whether or not this is actually "erroneous" is somewhat subjective...

"Near" is relative, and Kilimanjaro is about 200km from the closest part of the Serengeti region. Of course this would be a very long walk, and a few hours drive, but relative to Tanzania as a whole, it's not particularly far away either. And relative to Africa as a whole, it's quite close. If one looks on Google Maps and zooms out to where all of Africa becomes visible, then it's almost the same point on the map.

So perhaps it should be edited to note that they are actually relatively close in the greater scheme of Africa, or even Tanzania? -2003:CA:8710:200:1CFC:7D3C:EE8F:458B (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

And I've removed it as unsourced trivia. Vsmith (talk) 00:49, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Some sources to continue expanding the article

It seems difficult to find sources that are about the ecosystem, rather than the park or the district, but these might be useful for others looking to improve the article:

• Live Science article (has info on 19thC and 20thC history of the region)
• WWF listing (has a long bibliography)
• "The Serengeti-Mara squeeze—One of the world's most iconic ecosystems under pressure" (summarizes a recent article in Science)

It looks like researching the Maasai relocation would also improve the article, as this seems to have been a controversial point in the Serengeti's history, possibly worth its own sub-section. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 08:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Should this article actually be the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem?

As I try to look around for information about where the boundaries of the Serengeti actually are, if they're not the park or the district, it seems like what people actually refer to is the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. The sources that just call it "the Serengeti" seem to be more tourism/safari focused, whereas scientific or conservationist sources use Serengeti-Mara. But, I am by no means an expert here, so I hesitate. Maybe there should be a discussion via a requested move (a process I've never done)? @Cmbird1:, it looks like you have much more expertise and several years ago raised the question of the name -- what do you think? ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 09:12, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I would completely agree! The Serengeti-Mara ecosystem is quite well defined, the Serengeti NP is very well defined, the Serengeti district is also well defined - but Serengeti as used here is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmbird1 (talk • contribs) 21:03, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. I came here to learn about the ecosystem but it seems like the ecosystem (which has no regard for state boundaries) has been largely conflated with Tanzania's park. Kenya is mostly unmentioned in this article outside the section on the Great Migration. This article actually increased my confusion over something that I previously thought I knew.

Here is a quote from Anderson et al. (2010), wherein the authors were referencing Sinclair et al. (2008):

"[Serengeti National Park, Ikorongo, Grumeti, and Maswa, in Tanzania, East Africa], along with Loliondo, Nogorongoro Conservation Area, and several protected areas in Kenya, are components of a larger 25000km^2 Serengeti-Mara ecosystem".

.

.

Anderson TM, Hopcraft JGC, Eby S, Ritchie M, Grace

JB, Olff H. 2010 Landscape-scale analyses suggest

both nutrient and antipredator advantages to

Serengeti herbivore hotspots. Ecology 91,

1519–1529. (doi:10.1890/09-0739.1)

.

Sinclair, A. R. E., C. Packer, S. A. R. Mduma, and J. M. Fryxell.

2008. Serengeti III: human impacts on ecosystem dynamics.

University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Valeix, M., A. J. Loveridge, S. Chamaille-Jammes, DSDeLaMater (talk) 20:58, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Split

I think that there should be a separate for the Great Migration. I created a draft of it. What does everyone think? TigerScientist Chat 04:01, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Reviewers please see Draft:Great Migration (Serengeti) for the proprosed split per TigerScientist AngusW🐶🐶F (bark • sniff) 17:06, 4 May 2021 (UTC)