Right now in the Serengeti region of East Africa, an event is taking place which sets the air ringing with a formidable sound. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Migrating in enormous herds and looking a bit like horned cattle with horses’ manes, over a million wildebeests are in the middle of their mating season.
“This is one of the most spectacular animal events, certainly for the terrestrial mammals left in the world.”
Dr. Richard Estes is a behavioral ecologist and a leading expert on African mammals.
“The females, which compose something over half the population, are all coming into estrus within a month, let’s say, where the rutting peak is only lasting about two weeks, and all of these females are being bred by, let’s say, a quarter million bulls, or less. And these bulls, in order to have access to a female in estrus, have got to have a piece of property, even if only for a short time. And the essence of the rut is that males are trying to round up females as the females are migrating through. But the males spend something over ninety percent of their time rounding up females and fighting with one another trying to steal each others’ females.”
Although that behavior may sound oddly familiar, just wanted to remind you that we’re talking about the mating season for Wildebeests in Africa.
“It’s quite an extraordinary event and the noise that you hear in the peak of calling is maybe made by twenty or thirty thousand bulls, all chorusing at once, like a giant chorus of bullfrogs. And I call this the Big Hum. At full volume, it reverberates with the sound.”
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.