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#HerdTracker: Crowd-sourcing the great wildebeest migration

27 Jun 2017

Discover Africa's HerdTracker, developed in 2014, was launched to accurately track the movement of the great wildebeest migration in Kenya and Tanzania, allowing wildlife enthusiasts and travellers the unique opportunity to experience and explore the migration with real-time information based on the location of the migratory herds.

Daniel Rosengren via Wikimedia Commons

Now, in 2017 HerdTracker has been updated to include crowd-sourced data from anyone sharing sightings of the migratory herds using #HerdTracker and the location of the herds at the time of the sighting.

This will automatically pull through to the live feed and contribute to the overall accuracy, while the real-time movement can be viewed on the migratory map. Thousands of citizen journalists now become the eyes and ears of the would-be Mara or Serengeti visitor.

Although continuous updates are still being received from HerdTracker contributors like Tanzania National Parks Authority rangers, lodges in the Masai Mara, pilots who fly over the Serengeti, safari guides on the ground and even hot air balloon operators, the additional updates from the public via Twitter will provide an even more accurate depiction for travellers wanting to book a migration trip.

“The enormity of tracking such a prolific wildlife event takes a collaborative effort and we value the contributions from our partners and now the public at large. We developed HerdTracker to help make planning the journey easier for our customers,” says Andre van Kets, co-founder of HerdTracker.

Eliminating the guesswork

The app ultimately aims to reduce the amount of fear and uncertainty that travellers may experience when planning and booking a safari to watch the migration which, before HerdTracker, was not an exact science. However, using the app assists in eliminating the guesswork of where and when the best place and time is to view the migration.

"The HerdTracker safaris are the first of their kind to use crowd-sourced migration movement data to determine the best areas and the right lodges to stay at for migration safaris. Being in the right parts of the Serengeti/Mara ecosystem is the first step," adds Van Kets on the difficulty when booking a migration safari.

How to get involved

View HerdTracker in action or share your update if you have a sighting of the herds by using #HerdTracker with a location and any imagery on Twitter to help make one of the world’s greatest wildlife events accessible.