Tourists with cameras are now as bad as the trophy hunters
Last week the South African guide Nick Kleer posted shocking footage from the Mara River in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania showing tourists and their vehicles blocking a riverbank as a herd of wildebeest tried to cross.
The post has sparked outrage from guides, lodge owners and tour operators, but that fury seems disingenuous because what was shown in Kleer's video has been going on for years.
The Great Migration — in which about two million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles follow the rains around the plains of the Serengeti and Masai Mara — is considered to be the most spectacular natural show on earth. It has the challenges, tragedies and triumphs of any epic and, as such, it's high on the wish lists of millions.
Being present at a crossing when herds of three thousand or more plunge across the Mara, Sand and Talek rivers — running the gauntlet not only of crocodiles but also the leopards, lions and hyenas lurking on the banks — is the safari industry's hottest ticket, and every tourist wants a front-row seat.
But as visitor numbers have soared at Serengeti National Park and just over the border at Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in Kenya, the behaviour of drivers, guides and tourists in pursuit of the best video or photograph has become progressively worse.
One year before Nick Kleer posted his video from the Kogatende crossing point, I was 12 miles north, watching from a hillside above the Ashnil crossing point on the Mara River. What followed was not pretty.
About 50 tourist vehicles were racing abreast towards the riverbank, weaving in and out of a panicked herd of wildebeest. These animals had tried to cross the day before, but tourist vehicles blocking their exit — as they do in Nick Kleer's video — had forced half the herd to turn back.
Many of those stranded were calves, and their mothers were waiting for them on the far bank, until the tourist cars scared them away. Carcasses of the animals that perished in the crossing bobbed in the river, largely ignored by the crocodiles, which had eaten their fill overnight.
The injured animals — most with broken legs — had been unable to climb the steep banks to safety, so stood bleating in the shallows, awaiting the inevitable.
Above them, as the herd reformed to try again, the cars rushed in, with the photographers hanging over the sides of the vehicles, pointing Canons in the way that hunters aim rifles. Then a group of about 300 wildebeest tried a crossing, and some even made it past the tourists choking the exit point on the other side. Others, again mainly calves, tried to turn back but were trampled beneath the hooves of the oncoming masses.
By the time it was over three more wildebeest were dead, with three more stranded on river beaches with broken limbs and little hope of survival. This was a tiny event in the grand drama of the migration, but these deaths would not have occurred had tourists not been blocking the exit routes.
• Read our full guide to Africa
Sadly, you'll see similar ignorance, selfishness and greed almost every day in the Serengeti and the MMNR. I've counted 41 vehicles parked around a single leopard in an acacia tree; picked up a basket full of plastic, wet wipes, cans and bottles from a sundowner site; seen a fist fight break out after two amateur photographers climbed onto another party's vehicle to get a better angle; and watched an open-topped Land Cruiser repeatedly charge through a herd of zebras so the whooping photographers on board could capture the panic.
Such disrespect is not limited to Africa. I've witnessed a car crash in Ranthambore National Park in India as guides jostled to get their clients to the front of a crowd around a tiger, while Yala National Park in Sri Lanka is the only protected area where I've seen roadkill.
In Kenya and in Tanzania safari tourism is divided between the so-called value sector — in which guests pay upwards of £800 per person per night in high season for five-star accommodation — and the mass market, in which you can book a day trip from Nairobi for as little as £227.
Those in the former are taken on two game drives a day by a qualified guide; the latter typically get a driver with minimal knowledge. 'These guys are earning maybe [£15] a day, but if they promise the world they can make maybe six times that in tips,' said an MMNR guide who wished to remain anonymous. 'But I know qualified guides who are just as bad. We depend on good reviews so it is very hard to resist a client who is saying, 'I want to be at the front at the crossing and I will pay you well.''
The value sector blames all the bad behaviour and overcrowding on the day-trippers at the cheap end of the market, but that's not entirely fair. Guests from two high-end lodges were filmed at the Kogatende crossing last week and, regardless of the finger-pointing, the truth is that — with no cap on peak-season visitor numbers — overtourism has arrived in the bush and it's hurting the wildlife.
Two years ago the MMNR's new management plan warned that overcrowding was not only spoiling the tourist experience but was also leading to habitat degradation and 'a major decline in several of the reserve's charismatic wildlife species'.
• Two women died on safari last week — are these trips becoming more dangerous?
Access to the Serengeti is relatively cheap (£3 a day for Tanzanians and £52 for foreigners) and — while many in the industry say that a significant increase in fees is the most effective way to limit numbers — the Tanzania National Parks Authority is actively encouraging low-cost, high-volume tourism and will raise prices by just 15 per cent in 2026.
However, it is not guaranteed that higher prices would limit numbers. Last summer the entrance fee to the MMNR for foreigners increased from £52 to £150 a day. Official arrival figures aren't yet available, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it's had little effect on demand — and last week President Ruto of Kenya announced a new push to increase overall visitors from three million in 2025 to five million in 2027.
Restricting visitor numbers to the Serengeti and the MMNR, perhaps by copying the Rwandan model of limited permits, would reduce pressure on wildlife but would require significant increases in conservation fees and risk turning safari tourism into even more of a pursuit for the rich than it is now.
And this won't improve behaviour. Guides always want to earn tips; tourists (especially the frantic ones with the big cameras) always want the best view at every sighting — and that doesn't change because you're paying £1,100 a night in a top-end lodge rather than £227 for a day trip in a pop-top minibus.
One argument is that the parks can do without the so-called box-tickers who come for migration, but every species in the Greater Mara ecosystem — and elsewhere in the protected areas of Africa — is dependent on tourism for its survival. Take away the tourists, the conservation argument goes, and the only way to make that grassland pay is to put cattle on it.
Calls for heavier sanctions on irresponsible tourist traffic have fallen on deaf ears in park administrations, so here is a simple, effective fix: position rangers at the key crossing points during migration and ban all safari vehicles from approaching within 1,000ft until the herds have moved on.
The industry will argue that the crossings are the most exciting and dramatic feature of the migration, and a ban on getting close up will hit bookings. Maybe it will, especially from the trophy hunters dreaming of an award-winning photo. But is their money worth the life of a single wildebeest?
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