South Sudan: World's Biggest Mammal Migration

Deep in the hinterlands of this East African country is one of the greatest natural events you’ll probably never see and may never have heard of.

Credit: YouTube | African Parks

South Sudan: no place in Africa even comes close to the intact nature of the land, the ecosystems and the wildlife. Here, six million antelope thunder across an area the size of Illinois, a mass movement of mammals triple the size of the famous Serengeti wildebeest trek, the go-to migration for both tourists and TV wildlife shows. But in South Sudan, the great migration is roughly triple the size as the animals storm through sparse forests and open savannah, trickles of antelope merging to become streams, streams swelling and spreading until the landscape is filled with thundering rivers of white-eared kob, tiang, Mongalla gazelle and Bohor reedbuck. A single herd can number 100,000 antelope, or more.

“This is the greatest migration of large fauna in the world, including the oceans,” says renowned naturalist Mike Fay, who is conducting an antelope head-count in South Sudan. “The entire planet should be amazed that this exists.”

Yet the Great Nile Migration remains virtually unknown to outsiders and is both dangerous and very difficult to witness, says the Wall Street Journal. Would-be visitors have to travel to a country that’s been engulfed in on-again-off-again war for decades, and is currently on again. Then there’s the terrain. The animals move through a landscape with virtually no roads, not even rough safari tracks, and are only easily viewable only from helicopters or slow-flying ultralight aircraft.

In 2023, African Parks conducted an aerial survey revealing the movement included some 5.1 million white-eared kob, which generally move in a U shape in and around Boma National Park, sometimes crossing into Ethiopia’s Gambella National Park.

The animals stop to eat and breed, but they’re on the move much of the year. The estimated total migration comes to nearly six million animals. By contrast, roughly two million blue wildebeest and common zebra traverse the Serengeti between Tanzania and Kenya.

As it's so difficult to witness the Great Nile Migration first hand, why not spend 5 minutes watching this video? It's worth it...