Half of the wildebeests in the Serengeti are seemingly “missing” in the latest survey of the region. An AI-driven model has unexpectedly shown there are fewer than 600,000 wildebeests in this part of East Africa – less than half the previous estimate of 1.3 million. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

This raises some big questions: has the wildebeest population collapsed? Have the animals moved? Is the AI wrong? Or has this new method simply revealed that the old estimations were way off the mark?

Every year, droves of wildebeests circle the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem in a clockwise migration, joined by zebras and antelopes as they avoid the hungry eyes of lions , crocodiles, and hyenas.

Over the past 50 years, research

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