Nile antelope migration

A viral clip of antelope pouring across South Sudan’s plains is showing a real migration that scientists counted at about 6 million animals in 2024. (africanparks.org) The count came from South Sudan’s first comprehensive aerial wildlife survey of the Boma Badingilo Jonglei Landscape, announced on June 25, 2024 by the government and African Parks. The survey identified white-eared kob, Mongalla gazelle, tiang and Bohor reedbuck moving across the landscape each year. (africanparks.org) Boma and Badingilo national parks sit in southern South Sudan and are part of a roughly 20-million-hectare ecosystem that stretches through the Jonglei corridor to the White Nile. In the wet season, herds gather in Badingilo to breed, then move north and east toward Boma, the Sudd wetlands and Ethiopia’s Gambella National Park. (africanparks.org) Conservation groups call it the Great Nile Migration, and they now describe it as the largest land mammal migration on Earth. Earlier surveys had suggested a much smaller movement, with the Wildlife Conservation Society estimating more than 1.3 million migratory animals in 2007. (unmissions.org) (newsroom.wcs.org) The new count arrived after South Sudan signed a 10-year management agreement with African Parks in 2022 and backed a broader aerial survey in 2023. African Parks said the work also included wildlife collaring to map how animals use the landscape across seasons. (africanparks.org 1) (africanparks.org 2) The migration has survived decades of war and insecurity that kept much of the area difficult to study. United Nations Mission in South Sudan officials said the mass movement was once thought lost, even as the 2024 survey found it still thriving. (unmissions.org) The same survey also found warning signs. African Parks said many non-migratory species, including elephant, warthog, cheetah, hippo and buffalo, have declined sharply compared with studies from the 1980s. (africanparks.org) South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, used the survey launch to call for more ranger training and stronger action against poaching and wildlife trafficking. United Nations officials also linked the migration’s future to tourism, conservation funding and protection for communities living in and around the parks. (unmissions.org) So the video’s scale is not the illusion. It is a glimpse of a migration that crosses one of Africa’s largest remaining wild landscapes, and one that South Sudan is now trying to count, patrol and keep intact. (africanparks.org 1) (africanparks.org 2)