Maasai Mara is a large national game reserve in Narok Kenya. Maasai Mara is an extension of Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania. Masai Mara is named in honor of the Maasai people, who are ancestral inhabitants of the area.
All Big Five animals are found in Masai Mara, Lions, Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Buffalos and Leopards.
Masai Mara is among the most famous and most important wildlife conservation and wilderness areas in Africa.
Quick facts:
•Maasai Mara National Reserve is 1,510 km ², managed by local authorities and Kenya Wildlife Service.
•The Maasai people where this park derived it’s name from are among the famous community in Africa for their value of tradition and rituals. Masai Mara land is part of their lives and so they take part in conservation of wildlife and it’s ecosystems.
•Maasai rarely hunt and live in harmony alongside wildlife, which is an important part of their beliefs. Lions and wildbeests plays a very important role in their cultural beliefs as their own herds of cattle. This unique co-existence of man and wildlife makes this area very attractive to tourists.
•Giraffes, Elands, Zebras, elephants, buffalos ,wildbeests, Gazelles and topi are among the herbivores scattered in vast grasslands of Mara and calls Maasai Mara home. Birds life of 53 species of raptor birds have been recorded and a total of 400 species of birds. Monkeys, cheetahs, lions, pythons, leopards, crocodiles among others calls Maasai Mara home.
•Each year the Mara host one of the world’s natural wonders of Great Wildbeests Migration from Serengeti. From July to October, the promise of rain and fresh life-giving grass in the north brings more than 1.3 million wildbeests together into a single massive herd. A total of 1.5 million of wildbeests, zebras, topi, elands and antelopes migrate from Serengeti to Maasai Mara.
•Not only 300,000 to 500,000 births given per year in East Africa by wildbeests as new lives, they bring on the predators who follow them to Maasai Mara.
•The Mara has been known as Kingdom of Lions (Around 800 population) as they dominate the plains of Maasai Mara. Team hyenas and smaller predators such as jackals are common sights in Masai Mara.
•Among all the parks in Kenya, this is the best serviced with wide range of accomadation from any budgets. The park is ideal for game drives, some lodge and camps offer walking and balloon safaris.
