DaveGoesToAfrica: Venture into Ngorongoro Crater

The jewel in Ngorongoro's crown is a deep, volcanic crater, the largest un flooded and unbroken caldera in the world. About 20kms across, 600 meters deep and 300 sq kms in area, the Ngorongoro Crater is a breathtaking natural wonder. At 6:00 am, we starterd our journey down into the Crater.

The Ngorongoro Crater is nestled in a range of extinct volcanoes which rise to heights of more than 3,500m. It is the largest un flooded and unbroken caldera in the world – 19.2 km in diameter, 610m deep and 304 sq km in area. The rich pasture and permanent water of the Crater floor supports a large resident population of wildlife of up to 25,000 – predominantly grazing animals. These include wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, buffalo, eland, kongoni and warthogs.

The swamps and forest provide additional resources for hippo, elephant, waterbuck, reedbuck and bushbuck, baboons and vervet monkeys. Predatory animals – lion, leopard, cheetah, several cats live off the abundant wildlife and average packs of hyena roam the Crater, making their own kill and scavenging from others. Only bull elephants descend regularly to the Crater floor. The large breeding herds wander throughout the forest rim where they find the most suitable food. The black rhinoceros in the Crater are relatively safe and the number is approaching twenty-four.

Before it collapsed, the Ngorongoro Crater was said to have been 4587m above sea level. Some of the craters, such as Ngorongoro, Empakaai and Olmoti are not true craters but are actually calderas. A caldera is formed when a circular fault in the wall of the volcano causes it to collapse into itself to form a crater floor

For thousands of years a succession of cattle herding people moved into the Area, lived here for time, and then moved on, sometimes forced out by other tribes.

About 200 years ago the Maasai arrived and have since colonized the Area in substantial numbers, their traditional way of life allowing them to live in harmony with the wildlife and the environment. Today there are some 42,200 Maasai pastoralists living in the NCA with their cattle, donkeys, goats and sheep. During the rains they move out on to the open plains; in the dry season they move into the adjacent woodlands and mountain slopes. The Maasai are allowed to take their animals into the Crater for water and grazing, but not to live or cultivate there. Elsewhere in the NCA they have the right to roam freely.

Ngorongoro is not a National Park -- certain human settlements and activity are permitted. When the British established the Serengeti National Park in the fifties, they evicted the Maasai tribespeople who had moved into the non-tsetse infected grasslands 150 years earlier. As compensation, they were offered refuge in nearby Ngorongoro, already occupied by fellow Maasai. No other Maasai were allowed to move in and no increase in their livestock was permitted. Unlike many of Africa's conservation areas, the Ngorongoro Authority manages a complex mix of wildlife, vegetation, water, Maasai pastoralists and their stock, not to mention all them pesky tourists.

Although a small percentage of the population, the Maasai (promoted as "photogenic" in tourism brochures) are the ethnic group best known to visitors to Tanzania and Kenya. Most Maasai maintain a traditional tribal lifestyle and live off their livestock: primarily milk but also meat and blood.

We saw gazillions of grazing gazelles and other antelopes. There are 34 antelope species in Tanzania. One of our favourites is the graceful impala. Impala are constantly alert as they are a favourite prey of the large predators. Only males have horns which are primarily used against other males in competitions for dominance and not against predators.

Peering down from the rim, we could discern dots moving in the distance of the crater floor. Inside the crater, we met up with these bull elephants. Elephant families stay in the highland forests surrounding the crater and do not venture into the crater. Males leave cow herds at 12 years or later, depending on when they reach puberty. Once on their own, bulls alternately wander solo and associate with other bulls.

The high commercial value of their horns has led to intense poaching. The black rhinoceros has declined from a continental population of more than 100,000 in the 1960s to 2,500 today. Less than 50 survive in Tanzania. This is one of seventeen black rhinos living in the crater.

Seventeen, which includes two fertile females repatriated from South Africa in 1997, may not sound like many but it is only due to intensive conservation and anti-poaching efforts that any remain. The sheer crater walls act as a natural barrier and help give them, one of the last viable free-ranging black rhino populations, a fighting chance. Other Tanzanian rhinos live behind protective electrified fences even more formidable than the Quebec City "Wall of Shame".

Heavy poaching continued through the 1980s, decimated the elephant herds. They are now regaining their numbers, partially because elephants from unprotected areas migrate to the safety of the parks. Elephant destruction of trees, normal and even beneficial when spread over a wide area, is becoming more of a problem as elephants are forced to concentrate in limited areas.

Elephant society is matriarchal and based on close family kin. Daughters remain in the same herd as their mothers and grandmothers. When a baby is born, the whole herd is attentive to it and will be very protective. Calves small enough to walk under mother maintain constant contact.

Lions and hyenas are capable of nabbing baby elephants, but rarely get the chance. Herds will form a defensive ring around calves. Both male and female African elephants have tusks, the size of which indicates their age.

If there are few large predators in the park, one of the most dangerous is the African buffalo. While usually placid if not disturbed, these powerful grazers can be unpredictable. They are one of the African animals responsible for the most injuries to humans. While he has fired in the air occasionally to scare them off, Innocent told me he's only ever shot, and killed, one buffalo. In ranger training, they stress that a charging buffalo allows no time for a second shot.

Also called cape buffalo, they are endemic to Africa and related to cattle, bison and water buffalo. Lions, working as a team as they are much smaller than buffalo, can prey upon adult buffalo that stray from the herd. Up close, lions seem very large, with "strikingly" enormous paws. But compared to buffalo, let alone elephants and giraffes, lions seem like house cats again. With its perimeter of strong sharp horns (effective against lions, unlike antelope horns), the herd itself is virtually impenetrable. Mothers guide newborns into the co-operative herd's lion-proof centre.