when does african lion safari open

African Lion Safari: Ontario’s Wildest Safari Adventure

Great news for fans of African Lion Safari – they are open for the 2023 season and have lots of WILD fun in store for you and your family! We have the inside scoop on what you can expect when you visit this summer, updates on the new African Lion Safari ticket prices plus some tips and important info for visitors.

2023 Season highlights

African Lion Safari is Canada’s Original Safari Adventure. They maintain a collection of over 1,000 exotic birds and animals comprised of over 100 different species. What animal is your favourite? Will you giggle at the silly monkeys and lemurs or be entranced watching the long-legged giraffes stroll their habitat?

Drive Through Game Reserve – One of my earliest memories of African Lion Safari was when we saw cars driving through the game reserves getting oh-so-close to the animals roaming around. It was like nothing I had ever seen before! The drive-through is 9 km long and it takes you up close through 7 large Game Reserves featuring Nairobi Sanctuary, Simba Lion Country, Timbavati Lion Country, Wankie Bushland Trail, Rocky Ridge Veldt, Australasia and The Americas. You stay in your vehicle, driving at a very slow pace, and you get to witness animals roam their territory.

Take The “Nature Boy “Train – Hop on the train for a 15-minute ride through 16 hectares of animals and birds. A trip is included in your admission.

Climb Aboard The “African Queen” – Take a boat ride to enjoy a pleasant tour around Water Safari Lake. The informative captain will take you on a cruise around the islands and point out exotic primates including the White-handed gibbon, Ring-tailed lemur, Black-handed Spider monkeys and Robust Black Spider monkeys. Bird dwellers include the Marabou stork and the Pink-backed pelican. The tour is about 15 minutes and is included in your admission.

African Lion Safari’s Waterpark Splash Pad

The splash pad, Misumu Bay Wetplay, is more than just a splash pad at African Lion Safari! As a matter of fact, this may be the highlight of your visit! I have multiple friends who buy season passes strictly for this amazing waterpark. The waterpark is included in your admission and while you’re there cool down under the dumping bucket or slip down the water slides. Enjoy sprinklers and water shooters and fountains, too!

African Lion Safari Tickets 2023

How much is it to go to the Safari? This year, you can purchase your tickets in advance online or at the gate. Limited tickets will be available to buy at the gate, and they recommend pre-purchasing online to secure your spot. What’s more, you save a few dollars when you buy online. Click here to buy your African Lion Safari tickets.

We are always on the lookout for African Lion Safari discount codes for you, therefore watch this spot as this is where we will share them.

2023 ONLINE TICKET PRICES

2023 gate safari tickets, a season’s passport – is it worth it.

Season’s Passports are a great idea if you plan on visiting African Lion Safari 3 or more times. A Passport gives you unlimited visits for the season and if you love the looks of Misumu Bay Wetplay , it will be worth it to invest. Season Passport holders also receive 20% off food and non-alcoholic beverages at all on-site food service locations (this excludes vending carts). You also enjoy 20% off in the gift shops (excluding sales and batteries). Click here to buy your African Lion Safari Season Passport .

If we discover African Lion Safari coupons, coupon codes or deals, we will share them here!

Tips and FAQs

Yes, it is! You can see a detailed list of Accessible measures and specific park sections here.

Yes, they are. But please leave pets at home.

“African Lion Safari is pleased to participate in the Easter Seals Access 2 Card Program and offer both an individual with a disability and one support person, 25% off regular gate admission at the Ticketbooth.”

Yes, wagon rentals are available for $8 and wheelchairs are $5. Both rentals require a security deposit

VISA, MasterCard, Interac and cash are accepted at all locations throughout the park. 

Washrooms are available at Jungle Junction, Mombasa Market Restaurant, Misumu Bay Wetplay and at the end of Tusker Trail. 

More Staycation Ideas You’ll Love

African Lion Safari

For a family-friendly adventure like no other in Ontario embark on a driving tour through wild game reserves at African Lion Safari. With seven different wildlife themes, discover habitats and animals from across the African continent, the Australian Outback and even the high plains of North America.

From the safety of your vehicle, weave through different ecosystems and explore over 300 hectares with animals roaming free, including some species that are threatened or endangered. Spot lions, zebras, giraffes, white rhinos, ostrich, watusi, kangaroos, bison and more. After your “safari,” discover more about the park’s conservation efforts, breeding programs and research teams.

Just outside Cambridge, off Highway 8, African Lion Safari is only 35 km north of Hamilton.

For up-to-date information and details about African Lion Safari, we recommend visiting their website . For more information about the park and other places of interest to explore nearby, keep scrolling to see what Destination Ontario recommends.

Photo credit: African Lion Safari

More about African Lion Safari

African Lion Safari combines entertainment and the joy if witnessing nature with wildlife conservation education, particularly for species classified as threatened or endangered.

While you ooh and ahh on your tour of the themed game reserves, experts work behind the scenes to research and conduct breeding programs to increase populations. African Lion Safari staff travel globally to provide extra care to animals in the wild. Since opening its doors in 1969, African Lion Safari has successfully bred 50 different threatened and endangered species.

The park provides features large swaths of bushland, grasslands and forest, with a vast amount of space for animals to roam and behave as if they were in the wild.

If you tour in your own vehicle, you’ll receive a quick inspection to ensure everyone’s safety. However, if you’d rather not drive, opt for the Safari Tour Bus. And don’t forget to bring binoculars – this is a safari!

9 km of driving routes lead through the Nairobi Sanctuary, Simba Lion Country, Timbavati Lion Country, Wankie Bushland Trail, Rocky Ridge Veldt, Australasia and The Americas. Over 1,000 animals and birds live in the open grasslands, shaded forests or the expansive marshy wetlands.

While making your way through the park reserves, listen to an audio tour recorded by experts. You’ll learn all about the animals in each, how to identify them, any special features and what they like to eat and do. The park also provides a general welcome tour and more information about their conservation programs, including the Cheetah Conservation Centre.

Combine your African Lion Safari adventure with other attractions in the area. Just south of the park is the Westfield Heritage Centre , which features more than 30 historical buildings across 204 hectares. Tour the museum with costumed interpreters. The museum’s property is an official conservation area with several walking trails through its meadows and woodlands.

North of African Lion Safari, Valens Lake Conservation Area is a great spot for outdoor pursuits like hiking, boating, camping and fishing, as well as snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in the winter. The 300+ hectares are managed by the Hamilton Conservation Authority , the region’s largest environmental organization that protects critical natural areas. Other popular nature preserves in the area include Dundas Valley Conservation Area and Christie Lake Conservation Area .

Head to the quaint town of Cambridge nearby for restaurants, cafes and boutiques. Set on the Grand River, enjoy a stroll through Mill Race Park which overlooks the river and features remains from an old mill. Visit the McDougall Cottage , a heritage site from the mid-19th century and the Hamilton Family Theatre Cambridge for musical and theatre performances.

Last updated:  August 18, 2023

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Tips for Visiting African Lion Safari

Feel like you live with a bunch of Monkeys??? Well why not take them to go visit some actual monkeys and many other animals at African Lion Safari . Great news for 2023 as they will be opening May 6th for another Wild Season. African Lion Safari has made some changes to the ticketing prices.

Kate has visited multiple times over the years. Erin and Thumper had season’s passes back in 2019 and we had a great summer visiting 4 different times, she can’t wait to repeat with Thumper who is now 4 and Squeaker who will be about 16 months this summer! Kate and Erin would highly recommend a visit to African Lions Safari, or if your looking to see animals at a smaller scale checkout our Guide to the Best Farms and Petting Zoos in Ontario .

WHAT IS AFRICAN LION SAFARI?

African Lion Safari is a park of 750 acres, that over 250 animals and 1000 exotic birds call home in their habitat of bush, grassland and forest where they can interact naturally like in the wild, and mized species roam and interact together creating a sight to see. African Lion Safari is dedicated to the conservation of declining wildlife species and is a drive through Wildlife Park. They also offer many animal shows, playrounds for kids, splash pad/water play opportunities, a small train and boat ride. For a full description of attractions, scroll down below.

WHERE IS AFRICAN LION SAFARI LOCATED?

African Lion Safari is located 1386 Cooper Rd, Cambridge, ON N1R 5S2.

WHAT ARE THE HOURS OF OPERATION FOR AFRICAN LION SAFARI?

African Lion Safari operates the Game Reserve Driving Path and Ticket Booth from MONDAY – FRIDAY : 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM  , SATURDAY – SUNDAY : 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM  during the Summer Season. Check here for updated times for Spring and Fall. The walking paths (including “Nature Boy” Scenic Railway, “African Queen” Boat Cruise, Misumu Bay Wetplay and Venture Playground are open until 5:30PM during the week and 7:00Pm on Weekends during the Summer Season.

WHAT ATTRACTIONS ARE AVAILABLE FOR 2023 AT AFRICAN LION SAFARI?

Game reserves –.

Offering visitors the choice of taking their own car or taking the bus to drive through 9 kilometres of trail, through 7 large Game Reserves featuring Nairobi Sanctuary, Simba Lion Country, Timbavati Lion Country, Wankie Bushland Trail, Rocky Ridge Veldt, Australasia and The Americas, giving visitors an upclose views of wild animals in their natural surroundings.

Kate visited on one of the hottest days of the summer and enjoyed the air conditioned bus tour through the game reserves.  I would highly recommend taking the bus tour, not only is it a comfortable ride where the kids can move from side to side to see the animals, but you also get to learn about the animals from the African Lion Safari Staff.  Our guide pointed out animals that I would have never spotted on my own and was able to tell us about the personalities and relationships of all of the different species.

Both the boys had a great time on the Safari tour and loved watching the animals roam and play.  Plus if you take the bus there is no risk of damage to your vehicle from a curious monkey or migrating buffalo!  My favourite animals on the safari were the Rhinoceros’ munching away on their breakfast and the baby monkey who was playing and chasing its mother around.

Nature Boy Scenic Railway

Enjoy a 15 minute ride aboard The Nature Boy Scenic railway that takes you around the park to enjoy exotic species from around the world, as you explore 16 hectare of reserve on a replica 1863 C.P. Huntington St

African Queen Boat Tour

Jump aboard a short boat ride as your tour around Safari Lake and enjoy as your captain guide points out unique primates including White-handed gibbon, Ring-tailed lemur, Black-handed Spider monkeys and Robust Black Spider monkey.

Animal Shows

Offering many live shows including: Parrot Paradise and Birds of Prey. Pending update on 2022 shows if Elephant Shows will return. While you are visiting African Lion Safari you can catch bird and animal shows that run several times a day.  It is an amazing sight to watch the Indian Elephants march in line down to the lake for a swim.  They are so graceful and playful in the water.  The Elephant swim was definitely a highlight of the day.

Venture Playground

African Lion Safari offer two different playgrounds: Safari Venture and Toddler Playground. Height restrictions apply.

Misumu Bay Waterpark

Cool off after a hot day on Safari in Misumu Bay! Stroll through Sprinklers, Spouts, Spray Buckets and Stream Jets in the interactive waterplay area. Trek under Rain Trees and Tumble Buckets in the main waterplayground, or enjoy one of the many slides. To enjoy the slides and Tumble buckets you must be 38 inches tall. For toddlers they have a bouncy swing and a small toddler slide as well as a shallow splash pool.

The day Kate visited African Lion Safari it was over 35oC so a trip to Misumu Bay Splash area was a welcome relief from the heat.  This expansive water park has areas for older and younger children.  Little Bear had so much fun in the bouncy seats in the toddler area while Monkey played on the slide close by.

When Erin visited in 2019, Thumper loved the slide in the toddler area and it was the perfect size that at about 18 months old she could climb the stairs and slide on her own while Erin waited at the bottom.

THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT AFRICAN LION SAFARI:

One thing Kate and Erin both loved about African Lion Safari on their visits is that the grounds of the park are not that big, you could walk to the far end of the park in about 10 minutes.  This is perfect as you can leave a picnic lunch, extra drinks, swim gear, stroller etc in the car and just pop back to get it whenever you need them without having a long trek to get back to the parking lot.

But don’t let that short walk to the car make you think that there is not much to do at African Lion Safari, because that is FAR from the truth!  Take a short boat cruise around Water Safari Lake to explore the islands and the creatures that live on them.  Or a train ride on the scenic railway to get a chance to spot turtles and many other species of animals including deer.  The train was a huge hit and we rode the rails 3 times during our visit.

Tip: Pack a Picnic Lunch and find a spot by the Elephant Swim Pond and plan your lunch for a time where there is an Elephant Swim, it was a blast to enjoy the outdoors, eat lunch and watch animals in their natural habitat.

AFRICAN LION SAFARI ADMISSION PRICES FOR 2023

ONLINE AFRICIAN LION ADMISSION PRICES:

2023 GATE AFRICIAN LION ADMISSION PRICES :

AFRICAN LION SAFARI SEASON PASS PRICES FOR 2023

Children who are turning 3 years of age on or before June 30, 2023 require a child’s Season Passport, photo ID may be required when issuing passports.

IS AN AFRICAN LION SAFARI SEASON PASS WORTH IT?

I found that the African Lion Safari Season Pass was a great deal for my family in 2019! If you have kids who love animals, and waterplay then this park is a GREAT VALUE for you! Like most season passes, you have to visit just 3x to make back your money as based on 2022 rates, it would cost an adult $82 plus tax for 2 visits or $96-106 (depending on when season pass was purchased) making the third visit basically free. The season pass offers you unlimited admission from May until October, I make it a plan to visit atleast once a month in June-August to ensure I get my value and any other visits are a BONUS!

OFFERS SEPERATE AREAS FOR KIDS UNDER 6 – I really enjoyed that this park was the perfect size and took a good amount of time but not the whole day to explore making it perfect for a daytrip with a toddler. I love that they offer a seperate toddler playground and toddler waterplay area which make this park a great investment especially for those families with kids under the age of 6 years old. Misumu Bay Wetplay is worth a full day visit on it’s own as this is by far my favourite Waterpark in the Greater Toronto Area .

-> 20% off food and non-alcoholic beverages at all on-site food service locations (excluding vending carts) -> 20% off gift shop merchandise at all on-site Safari Gift Shops (excluding batteries or sale items) -> Discounts to select off-season events, hosted by our onsite catering company, Classic Catering -> Special promotions exclusively for Season Passport holders

We always have such a fun day at the park I can’t wait to go back this summer to do it all again!  You can find all the details you need to plan your own wild adventure on their website and be sure to check out their pinterest page to see photos of all of the amazing animals at the park. 

If you enjoyed our guide to African Lion Safari checkout our guide to The Best Day Trips from Mississauga .

Have Fun and Go Wild!

African Lion Safari and Accesibility

• African Lion safari is wheelchair accessible and is an inclusive environment, wheelchairs can be rented for $5
• The Easter Seals Access 2 Card Program is accepted at African Lion Safari to allow an individual with a disability and one support person a 25% discount at the gate.

26 thoughts on “Tips for Visiting African Lion Safari”

Oh wow this looks super fun! I was wondering why I had never heard of it and realized it is in Canada. I have it on my “to-do in Canada” list now. = )

Oh, this looks amazing! My kids would totally love it! I wish it was close enough for us to go to!

That looks so fun! I can’t believe how many big animals they have!

What a fun place that would be! Each year we go to the zoo, but couldn’t this year because of the flooding {they had to close down most of the zoo because of damage}. I miss our annual trip! 🙁

How fun!!! My kiddos would definitely enjoy this! Who am I kidding? I would enjoy visiting 🙂

Neat! I’ve been to Africa and remember seeing so many of these animals in the wild. I’d love to go someday so the kids get the chance to see them too!

Looks like an awesome attraction to visit with your family. Unfortuntely, we have not been there, but will put it in our agenda for next summer.

Many years ago, my husband and I and our 4 daughters (5 – 14) drove from Victoria to my husband’s moms place in Font Hill Ontario. We took a day trip to this place and the girls all enjoyed it! The baboons (we think they were baboons) got a piece of our van, but it was all good lol

Oh wow! I would love to go. My toddler and younger brother would enjoy these animals so much!

I have such fond memories of going there as a kid – would love to take my boys. Looks like a fantastic day!

we went a few weeks ago and loved it. It was a cooler day but everything was perfect. My fave is the elephants and dd loved the splash pad. Looks like you had a blast

Working there would be even better!

looking forward to taking all 6 grandchildren to African lion Safari this summer. It is only 30 minutes away

My advice is to take the tram bus, so the monkey’s can’t wreck your car

this is so cool, Ive never been but I swear, one day Ill go with my family, and well have such a blast!

We managed to get 3 of the grandkids to African Lion safari and had a wonderful time. They loved going through the safari on a tram, visiting and staying for hours in the waterpark and watching the elephants having a swim

Oh my,this looks amazing!

What a fun tour, I love that you had a guide and airconditioning!

My grandkids would totally love it there

I’ve never been to a safari park but I would love to. I think the bus tour is a really good idea, as you said you learn a lot more that way plus no danger of damage to your vehicle either 🙂

I’ve never been to a safari park but this is something I would love to do,maybe some day

What at great place for a family to spend time together.

I haven’t been here in years…..some great changes have been made here. Love that there is a splash area for the kids!

Very cool I would love to visit there

I did not realize there was so much to see and do here. Looks like I will have to have a visit one day. Looks like so much fun and I know hubs would enjoy it also. It now is going on my bucket list.

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African Lion Safari

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African Lion Safari - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

• Mon - Fri 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
• Sat - Sun 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
• (15.93 km) Langdon Hall Country House Hotel & Spa
• (12.33 km) Homewood Suites by Hilton Cambridge-Waterloo, Ontario
• (14.09 km) Best Western Plus Cambridge Hotel
• (14.22 km) Hilton Garden Inn Kitchener
• (14.03 km) Cambridge Hotel and Conference Centre
• (0.23 km) African Lion Safari
• (12.12 km) Abigail's Tea House
• (10.91 km) Amici
• (13.39 km) Grain Of Salt
• (11.08 km) Cambridge Mill
• (11.11 km) Hamilton Family Theatre Cambridge
• (3.93 km) Westfield Heritage Village
• (10.80 km) Reid Chocolates
• (2.04 km) SOSA Gliding Club
• (14.13 km) Donkey Sanctuary of Canada

7 Ways to Go (Really) Wild at Lion Country Safari

Did you know that Palm Beach County is home to Florida’s largest drive-through safari? See how one family spends a fun filled day at Lion Country Safari.

Note: Lion Country Safari is currently open, but some experiences may be closed or have changed due to COVID-19 safety protocols. Please check with the attraction for the latest updates before visiting.

1. The Drive-Through Safari 

2. Feeding The Animals

3. Make a Splash in the Water Park Areas

4. Rides & Slides

5. Explore Lake Shannalee

6. Mini-Golf 

7. Camp Out on the “Savanna”

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• Experiences

Lion Safari

Unforgettable lion safaris in africa.

Lion safaris in Africa are among our most frequently requested itineraries. It makes sense, as seeing these majestic creatures up-close will take anyone's breath away! Their sheer power and regal beauty rightly give them the title of "King and Queen of the African Bush". 

These mighty cats are one of the most recognised members of the Big 5 and African wildlife. A big carnivorous feline mammal, lions boast a tawny-coloured coat, tufted tail, and, in the male, a heavy mane around the neck and shoulders. A pride of lions consists of related females and cubs residing in a home range or territory. Males are typically nomads that have gained custody of a pride through competition with other males. We share some of our favourite destinations for lion safaris in Africa where you can see these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat. 

The best destinations for lion safaris in Africa 

Lions safaris in south africa.

The Greater Kruger Area is a top pick for lion-spotting in  South Africa . Lion prides are particularly easy to see in  Sabi Sand Game Reserve  and  Timbavati Game Reserve,  located just north of Sabi Sand. Other winning picks in Kruger National Park include Lion Sands and  Singita's Ebony  and  Sweni  lodges – both found in the very heart of "big cat country".

Seeing white lions is something special but also very rare as there are not many left in the wild. However, at Timbavati Game Reserve, this bloodline continues, and you have the chance to see them up close! Another place in South Africa where you could get the opportunity to see white lions is  Sanbona Wildlife Reserve , located only a couple of hours from Cape Town.  

Lions safaris in Botswana

The  Okavango Delta  in  Botswana  is a magnificent destination for lion safaris in Africa. Still, there's one place in particular that's sure to astonish even the most seasoned safari-goer, a place where lions take on buffalo – a feat almost unheard of. The remote northern reaches of the Okavango Delta are home to  Duba Plains , an intimate camp set in among game-rich grasslands and seasonal floodplains. Only accessible by light aircraft, this camp is renowned for its resident lion prides and never-ending battles with the thousands of buffalo roaming the area. You can often see these large Botswana lions hunting in broad daylight or swimming through the permanent channels that flow through the landscape. 

Lions safaris in Tanzania

The  Serengeti  is a no-brainer choice when it comes to seeing lions in  Tanzania . Thanks to its rolling plains abundant in prey, lion sightings here are regular occurrences. While most visitors flock to the Serengeti, you'd regret leaving  Ruaha National Park  out of your lion safari itinerary. Ruaha is not only the largest national park in the country, it's one of its best-kept secrets too. Wildlife sightings are largely undisturbed thanks to low visitor numbers, leaving you free to marvel at Ruaha's impressive predator population – most notably the lion. 

Lions safaris in Kenya

The perennial motion of The  Great Wildebeest Migration  in  Kenya  acts as a bottomless buffet for the  Maasai Mara National Reserve 's lion population. With its grasslands brimming with an impressive ungulate population, it will come as no surprise that a plethora of predators, particularly lions and cheetahs, follow in their enticing wake. The lion population in the Maasai Mara is impressive, and sightings are common and exhilarating. 

Lions safaris in Zambia

The density of wildlife in the  South Luangwa National Park  in  Zambia  lends itself to sublime game-viewing opportunities. More importantly, its savannah grassland, Luangwa River and open plains make it an ideal environment for lions. Sightings of Africa's most renowned big cat are recurring thanks to its thriving population and abundance of prey.

Tailor-make your own lion safari experience

When looking for the best places to visit for lion safaris in Africa, we've got you sorted. We've scoured the continent for the best lion sightings and will take care of every detail of your trip. And as the World's Best Safari Company, you can rest assured that you're in good hands! Contact our  African Travel Experts  today, and let's start planning!  

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Where to Experience Lion Country Safaris

Author: Devryn Panaino - 19 December 2023

Last Update: 30 January 2024

Part of the African Safari Collection

An African lion safari is the perfect experience to bask in nature and see stunning wildlife in their most natural habitat. While many people love the Lion Country Safari at the Palm Beach County Lion Zoo in Florida, travelers increasingly seek ethical alternatives to interact with one of nature’s fiercest predators.

But what are your options for ethical wildlife experiences beyond this lion safari park? Read more to find the 10 best authentic lion encounters as you traverse Africa!

1. Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia

The Lower Zambezi National Park offers a unique landscape where lions are often observed hunting along the riverbanks. The park’s geography, with its mix of riverside and rugged terrain, influences the lions’ behavior and hunting strategies, making for compelling viewing, especially in the dry season.

The tranquility and unspoiled nature of the area make it ideal for those seeking an authentic wildlife experience, where the focus is on observing lions’ behavior and interactions in a peaceful setting, away from the bustling crowds.

2. Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

The Serengeti is a world-renowned ecosystem, hosting one of the densest populations of lions in Africa. The lions here are particularly known for their large prides and strategic hunting tactics during the Great Migration . This annual event sees over a million wildebeest and zebras traverse the plains, providing a feast for the lions.

The open savannas of the Serengeti offer spectacular views of these lions in action, showcasing their social structure and cooperative hunting strategies.

3. Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

In Kenya’s Masai Mara, the lion prides are celebrated for their strength and size. Masai Mara National Reserve becomes a hotspot for lion activity during the annual migration, where they actively hunt the migrating herds. This period, typically from July to October, offers exceptional opportunities to observe lions in their natural hunting grounds.

Masai Mara’s vast plains and scattered acacia trees provide a picturesque backdrop for watching these magnificent predators in action.

4. Etosha National Park, Namibia

Etosha National Park in Namibia presents a unique environment for lion watching. Adapted to the semi-arid climate, the lions here are often found near waterholes, providing spectacular wildlife viewing. The dry season, from May to October, is the ideal time to observe these majestic predators as they hunt and interact with other species.

The park’s open terrain and sparse vegetation offer clear visibility, making it a favorite for photographers and nature enthusiasts alike.

5. Kruger National Park, South Africa

South Africa’s Kruger National Park is a treasure trove of biodiversity, hosting a significant lion population. The park’s diverse landscapes, ranging from dense bushveld to riverine forests, support a rich variety of prey for the lions. This diversity allows for a unique insight into the adaptability and hunting techniques of Kruger’s lions.

Visitors can enjoy sightings throughout the year, with the dry winter months being particularly rewarding for lion encounters.

Greater Kruger Safari Short and Sweet

From $ 1360 /USD

Affordable Sabi Safari

Southern Africa South Africa Sabi Sands

From $ 1490 /USD

Livingstone Discovery

Zambia Livingstone Victoria Falls

From $ 1570 /USD

6. Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area, with its famous crater, offers an unparalleled safari experience. The crater’s high walls create a natural enclosure, providing a sanctuary for a dense population of wildlife, including lions. This unique ecosystem allows for close-up observations of lions in a relatively confined space.

The lions in Ngorongoro are accustomed to vehicles, allowing for intimate wildlife encounters and exceptional photographic opportunities.

7. Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park is known for its robust lion population. The park’s diverse landscapes, from teak forests to open savannas, offer varied habitats for lions. The dry season, from July to October, is particularly rewarding for lion sightings as they congregate near water sources.

The park’s commitment to conservation ensures that visitors can enjoy ethical and sustainable wildlife encounters.

8. Okavango Delta, Botswana

The Okavango Delta in Botswana is a unique wetland ecosystem, home to a variety of wildlife, including a healthy population of lions. These lions have adapted to the delta’s seasonal flooding, displaying unique behaviors such as swimming and hunting in shallow waters.

The delta’s intricate network of waterways and islands provides a stunning backdrop for observing these majestic predators in a truly unique setting.

9. Chobe National Park, Botswana

Botswana’s Chobe National Park is renowned for its high concentration of wildlife, including a large population of lions. The park’s diverse environments, from the lush Chobe Riverfront to the dry Savuti area , offer varied contexts for observing lion behavior.

The dry season, from April to October, is particularly rewarding as animals gather around the remaining water sources, providing excellent opportunities for lion sightings.

10. Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania

Selous Game Reserve is an expansive, untouched wilderness ideal for observing lions. Its diverse landscapes of riverine forests, grassy plains, and thickets provide a habitat-rich environment for lions, showcasing their natural behaviors from hunting to nurturing young.

Selous Game Reserve’s isolation ensures exclusive, intimate wildlife experiences and emphasizes conservation and sustainable tourism, offering visitors authentic, ethical encounters with these magnificent predators in their natural habitat.

Embark on a Lion Country Safari With Discover Africa

From the stunning sights of Zambia to the remote wilderness of Botswana, there’s always something to discover on a lion safari in Africa. With Discover Africa, luxury, adventure, and conservation await in a safe safari experience.

Contact Discover Africa today for more information about our ethical wildlife experiences and to book your authentic safari!

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Let’s talk about elephant rides and shows at African Lion Safari

Earlier this month, we asked our wonderful supporters to join us in asking african lion safari, as well as the ontario government, to end elephant rides and shows by sending them an e-letter..

UPDATE: As of July 2021, African Lion Safari has shared a statement saying that they permanently stopped elephant rides. Read more:

No more elephant rides at African Lion Safari

You took a stand for elephants and called for an end to the suffering they endure being used for entertainment, and we are pleased to share the news that...

In 2019, we asked our wonderful supporters to join us in asking African Lion Safari, as well as the Ontario government, to end elephant rides and shows by sending them an e-letter. Now, we are thrilled to share that African Lion Safari has confirmed the permanent end to their elephant rides. This is a win for animals that was made possible by your support as more than 7,700 of you took a stand for elephants and sent an e-letter.

We received a lot of support and positive feedback about the campaign as well as a lot of questions and comments that we would like to address.

Why are we asking African Lion Safari to end elephant rides and shows?

The decision to launch our e-letter campaign came following global research we had conducted on activities that contravene professional zoo policy, and two visits to African Lion Safari, at the end of May and early June 2019.

Through our research with the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit , we know that elephant rides are among the cruellest tourist activities because of the amount of suffering the elephants endure, physically and emotionally.

Many people may be surprised to learn that in order for zoos and other attractions to allow people to get up close with elephants to pet, bathe, and ride them, they must be cruelly trained to fear people, and obey commands. While we recognize that training methods vary across regions, methods typically involve social isolation, physical restraints, inflicting severe pain and withholding food and water. By the time tourists come to ride an elephant, he/she may look at peace, but this is because its spirit has been broken. The bullhook is used on thin areas of the elephant’s skin to cause pain and pressure, the elephants then learn to avoid it or face the consequences. This is not trust or cooperation. Elephants give rides to avoid being beaten. The bullhook reminds them of the punishment they face if they disobey a command.

The training is necessary if there is no barrier between the elephant and people (known as free contact management) because an elephant is dangerous and can seriously injure and kill people – and they have. The use of negative (and positive) reinforcement is needed to establish dominance to keep handlers and zoo visitors safe when close to the elephant. It also means the elephants need to be punished when they disobey commands.

This is why many zoos are moving to protected contact management of elephants where there are always barriers between the keepers, visitors and the elephants.

Aren’t there regulations in place to prevent animal cruelty at Canadian zoos?

How Canada deals with animal cruelty at zoos, differs between provinces. For example, Ontario does not require a license to keep exotic wild animals in zoos and wildlife displays and the captive wildlife standards under the Ontario Provincial Animal Welfare Services (PAWS) Act  are inadequate and poorly enforced.  

Sometimes animal cruelty is easily identifiable when physical abuse is witnessed. But the abuse elephants endure to be trained for rides and performances isn’t shown to the public. This training can have a significant negative impact on an elephant’s psychological welfare and these elephants carry invisible scars.

While the Canada’s Accredited of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) sets standards for its accredited members to follow, it is largely up to the zoo industry to police itself and our new report shows they aren’t enforcing their own rules and standards.

Don’t zoos that are members of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) and accredited by the Canada’s Accredited of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) have to adhere to higher animal welfare standards?

Unfortunately, accreditation doesn’t always ensure best practices are being enforced. For example, the two zoos in Canada cited in our report for offering cruel activities (elephant rides and wildlife selfies) were both members of WAZA and accredited by Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums.

Our extensive research of venues linked to WAZA has exposed awful abuse of animals for entertainment. Tigers and lions forced to perform. Dolphins being ridden. Elephants performing tricks. And much more.

As WAZA is the main global umbrella organization for zoos and other related institutions, they should lead the way with clear animal welfare standards and guidelines for their members, including African Lion Safari, and support their standards with robust monitoring. Their guidelines state that members should not involve animals “in animal shows, displays or interactive experiences where animals perform demeaning and unnatural behaviours.”

Sadly, we know from our staff visits that WAZA-linked venues around the world are not following these guidelines. With the industry policing itself, there is a clear need for governments to be involved by providing independent oversight to ensure animal welfare standards are being enforced.

Our report, ‘ The show can’t go on ’ highlights the suffering behind visitor interactions, including elephant rides and shows at African Lion Safari.

Can zoos properly care for and meet the needs of wild animals?

We believe that the only place that the physiological and psychological needs of wild animals can be properly met is in the wild. However, zoos are under obligation to meet the needs of the wild animals under their care as fully as possible. We are opposed to the commercial exploitation of captive wild animals purely for entertainment purposes. Zoos should never train animals for performances, never allow them to directly interact with the visiting public, and never farm or sell them. Some wild animals are better able to adapt to captivity than others and the needs of different species of wild animals vary. So too, do the conditions and levels of care provided by different zoos. But we know that some degree of suffering – no matter how minor – is always experienced by wild animals in zoos. We also know that zoos can play a vital role in the conservation of threatened wild species if they are managed according to best practice. We want zoos to focus their efforts on threatened species at immediate risk of extinction and channel most of their resources towards protecting wild animals in their natural habitats.

There is a better way

It is possible to educate about elephants and conservation without forcing them to give rides and shows. We are asking African Lion Safari to end the use of elephants for rides and shows as it is unnatural, can be a significant source of stress for the animals and is dangerous as this latest incident has shown. Asian or African elephants would never let you near them in the wild let alone on top of them naturally and must be trained to fear people, in order to accept a human rider or to obey commands.

There are ethical, cruelty-free animal tourism opportunities. We recently helped an elephant camp in Thailand transition to a completely elephant-friendly park. Tourists are able to see elephants in a more natural habitat and observe them from a safe distance. Click here to learn more about ChangChill and how they transitioned to be elephant-friendly.

Pledge to be elephant-friendly

Tourist demand for elephant rides and shows is driving these cruel activities. Elephants are suffering and it's completely unnecessary. We have the power to change this. Sign our pledge and help us shape a better future for elephants.

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Cruelty in the world's top zoos

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African Lion Safaris

Encounters with the icon of africa.

The true icon of Africa’s Big Five, the African lion is the symbol of strength and power, the epitome of any safari to wild Africa. Today, catching sight of this apex predator is one of the most sought-after prizes for almost every safari-goer, with regal prides located from East to South.

Observing the social aspect of lions' lives is one of the most memorable elements of an encounter with the species. Out on the wild African plains, females stalk big game as they feed on tasty grasses, prides nap in the shade and cubs play under the watchful eye of their mothers as males fight for the crown. Exploring via game drives and even walking safaris, witness the wild behaviours of these magnificent mammals.

Where can you see the African Lion?

African Lions are found in sub-Saharan Africa, with 80% of the population in eastern or southern Africa and three of the five largest populations in Tanzania. African Lions used to be found across most of the continent, but in recent decades they have disappeared from 12 sub-Saharan countries.

THE AFRICAN LION

• Lions are notably the only sociable big cat, with prides formed of a few muscular males, crowned with a thick mane and measuring up to 3.5m long and up to 272kg.
• Most of the hunting is done by the smaller more agile females, weighing between 110 kg and 168 kg, who will work together to hunt anything from small antelope up to buffalo and even giraffe; in Savuti in Botswana, they have learnt to hunt young elephant.
• The males will often get involved to help tackle the dangerous animals. Males have a large mane of hair which can be beige or black depending on the individual and the area they live in.

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African Lion Safari Destinations

• Masai Mara National Reserve: A great place to see lions year-round in the flat, wide and open plains of the Masai Mara. In July, 2 million wildebeest cross the Mara River under the eyes of the hungry lions.
• Serengeti National Park: Three of the five largest lion populations are in Tanzania and the Serengeti is one of the best spots to see lions due to the availability of food and the million wildebeest.
• In Southern Tanzania, Ruaha National Park is one of Africas hidden treasures with only 6000 visitors a year. Second to the Serengeti, Ruaha is home to 10% of the worlds lion population so there is great opportunities to see lions around less safari vehicles.
• The Ngorongoro Crater offers the oppourtunity to see the Big 5 in a different setting, in the worlds largest inactive volcanic caldera.
• Okavango Delta: The Okavango Delta is the best place to see water-adapted lions in Africa, these lions are 15% larger than others and have adapted to hunting during the day when the buffalo are grazing. The permanent water and nutritious grasses makes the Okavango Delta the perfect habitat for buffalo and you may witness lions fighting them here.
• Kruger National Park: Most of South Africa’s lions can be found in Kruger National Park. Being the size of Wales, it can be hard to find them, but South Kruger has way more lions as it is wetter and greener. We recommend staying at Sabi Sands, which is one of the most reliable places to see lions in Africa. Timbavati is also the best place to see white lions in Africa.

Lions are highly adaptable, and in Namibia you will find ‘desert-adapted’ or ‘desert-lions’, that have adapted to survive in the harsh landscape of little vegetation and prey. The best places to see lions in Namibia is in Kaokoveld and Damaraland, but be aware these lions are nomadic and you are not guaranteed to see them.

Classic Kenya Safari

An exciting family safari, exploring the masai mara....

Luxury South Africa Safari

Relax in the ultimate luxury of your lodge after encountering the African big cats whilst out on safari with your expert guide. Spend time on the coast of Cape Town exploring historic Robben Island and the rugged rocks of beautiful Cape Point. Visit Hermanus, a world-renowned whale watching destination, take the opportunity to see both black and white rhino in one place and even search for the rare white Lion in Timbavati Game Reserve.

Classic Tanzania Safari

This Tanzania highlights small group safari takes you to the heart of the action trying to catch sight of the migration, witness wildlife in the Ngorongoro Crater and enjoy an option hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti.

Small Group Namibia Safari

This expertly-guided small group trip consisting of a maximum of seven guests takes in the highlights of Namibia. Over the course of this ten day trip you will get to visit the iconic towering dunes at Sossusvlei, the coast and wildlife at Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, the desert-adapted wildlife and unique rock formations of Damaraland, rewarding wildlife viewing in Etosha National Park and an educational tour of the AfriCat Foundation at Okonjima.

Okavango Delta Botswana Safari

Combining Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, staying in both a 'wet' camp and 'dry' camp in the Delta to really get a feel for the iconic landscapes of Botswana.

African Lion Conservation

In just 25 years, Africa’s lion population dramatically dropped with only 50% of their numbers remaining across the iconic landscapes of the continent. The IUCN classified these majestic creatures as “vulnerable” as a result, a subject of habitat loss and fragmentation, illegal wildlife trade, poaching and human-lion conflict.

It was as a result of this revelation that the Lionscape Coalition was formed, in response to the growing threat of extinction and the predictable knock-on effect this would have on Africa’s biodiversity. Lions are classed as an “umbrella species”; with a wild lion population thriving, the entire surrounding eco-system functions effectively, ultimately also affecting the livelihoods of those relying on ecotourism for survival. The Lionscape Coalition sees four commercial competitors, who share the bold vision of the Lion Recovery Fund (LRF) to double wild lion numbers by 2050, collaborate on lion conservation programmes across Africa. Putting all commercial considerations aside, this alliance brings to this initiative over 100 years of positive conservation and community impact throughout Africa.

Lions are a resilient species so the future looks bright. These animals will rapidly reproduce if their habitats are protected if communities have incentives to co-exist and protect them. Creating healthy ‘lionscapes’ which can benefit these local communities is key to the success of population decline being reversed and many other species will recover in the process.

When is the Best Time to See African Lions?

The best time to see lions is during the peak safari season from July to October. The cool, dry winter means less vegetation for wildlife to hide behind and the lack of rain means wildlife will congregate around the lakes and rivers and most wildlife wont stray too far from the little water left.

African Lion Safari

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African Lion Safari - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Africa Safari Trip: A Comprehensive Guide To Crafting Unforgettable Memories

H ave you witnessed a lion’s roar echo across the savanna or watched a herd of elephants lumber by? An Africa safari trip is an otherworldly experience, but where do you even begin? This guide will equip you with all the essentials to plan your unforgettable adventure . Even though it can seem overwhelming at times, if you’re equipped with the right guidance and information, the procedure is rather easy.

To help you plan the perfect safari tour in Africa, in addition to answering the majority of your frequently asked questions, we’re put together some of the greatest tips and useful suggestions.

Choosing the Location of Your African Safari Trip

An Africa safari trip promises an enchanted world of discovery, where each expedition and place holds the potential to reveal a captivating tale. Every area of this enormous continent, from the lush deltas of the south to the brilliant savannahs of the east, offers a different fabric of fauna and culture. This is more than just a journey—it’s an exploration of the core of nature, where opportunity abounds at every turn.

African safaris are unique among travel experiences because of the authentic, natural spectacle of the wild. These excursions aim to fully immerse you in the world of animals, not just observe them. Planning your destination is among the most crucial aspects of preparation for any holiday, including this one. Africa is vast, so it’d be helpful to start with a “where to go on an Africa safari trip” Google search if you have no idea what to do.

To select the ideal safari destination, you must consider the things you wish to see. Are there any specific animals or cultural events you would like to see? Kenya and Tanzania from July to October are your best choices if you’ve always wanted to see the Great Wildebeest Migration. Visit either Botswana or South Africa to see a huge herd of African elephants throughout the year.

In East Africa and the majority of Southern African nations, the “Big Five” are also widely distributed. Travel to Uganda, Rwanda or the Congo for gorilla trekking; these countries are all in Central Africa. If you want to see chimpanzees on your Africa safari tour, Uganda is the ideal place to do it.

Top 5 Choice Destinations for Your Africa Safari Trip

Here are our top five African wildlife safari destinations to help you plan your trip.

Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve

At the Maasai Mara Reserves, the Big Five roam free, and boundless plains extend into the horizon on a wildlife safari. Traveling off-road and appreciating the lack of fences and lodging at any of the Mara conservation areas allows you to experience the breathtaking sight of countless wildebeests roaring across the East African savanna around the Great Migration.

From open safari vehicles, watch as lions hunt their prey with unparalleled subtlety. Elephants socialize within their close-knit groups, and elegant giraffes peruse acacia trees with grace. A fascinating insight into the Maasai people’s dynamic local culture, which is entwined with the land, its profusion of wildlife, and the natural beauties of the wildness itself, is provided by Maasai Mara.

Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park

Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park is home to a large environment that is brimming with life. See the boundless plains packed with antelopes, zebras, and wildebeests as they migrate in a never-ending dance of survival throughout your Africa safari trip. It’s what you anticipate seeing on game drives following your viewing of National Geographic or PBS programs. You might be amazed watching the big cats lounging in the shade following a good hunt, or you might experience the exhilaration of seeing a cheetah racing across the landscape in a flurry of speed.

There are other methods to observe wildlife, such as taking a hot-air balloon flight across the savanna for breath-inspiring, all-encompassing views of this iconic African terrain. Seasonality is essential when thinking about visiting the Serengeti; never schedule an unplanned online vacation.

Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park

You can feel the African wilderness in Zambia, not just see it. In contrast to safaris that are limited to metal enclosures, South Luangwa encourages you to stroll among the animals rather than drive by them. Imagine your heart racing as you make your way through verdant riverine forests full of leopards hiding in their disguises, only to be astounded by vast herds of buffalo crossing wide-open savannas.

As you approach elephants bathing, listen to the Luangwa River’s rushing waters, which will lead you to the echoes of night safaris. You can unwind in the unexpected comfort of fly tents or treehouse retreats when the stars adorn the sky.

South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park

You can journey across acacia woodlands and tour places with sun-filled savannas along the rushing waters of the Sabi River in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park. Hear the echoes of prehistoric existence and see the exhilarating dance of adventures amidst the rare species. Renowned for its almost assured Big Five meetings, you get to experience the exhilarating thrill of seeing elephants trumpeting by a waterhole or lions relaxing in golden light—you don’t have to imagine it.

There is more to Kruger’s artistry than the Big Five. Higher populations of predators and a more varied array of species can be found in the superb private game reserves found in the Greater Kruger National Park. Wander along the river where crocodiles and hippos sunbathe before becoming lost in the rainbow of more than 500 different bird species.

Botswana’s Okavango Delta

Emerald islands emerge from the reflecting waters of the spreading waterways of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A mokoro is a native dugout canoe in which you may sail softly and intimately while spotting sleeping hippos afar and thirsty elephants sipping at the riverbanks .

Search among the trees for one of the greatest spots to see leopards or take in the aerial views of storks, eagles, and pelicans.

In such a distant location, the Okavango Delta boasts one of the largest concentrations of upscale safari resorts in Southern Africa, providing you with exclusive access to convenience and uncrowded rivers for a singular embrace of unspoiled wildlife.

Tips For An Outstanding African Safari Adventure

The foundation of a great African safari is effective communication. It makes sure you get the best possible experience out of your trip by bridging the gap between what you expect and the actual conditions of the environment. There are three communication techniques to help you receive the experience you want by interacting with an Africa safari trip guide or travel advisor .

Clearly state your demands and desires. Tell us about your ideal speed, cultural attractions, the wildlife you hope to see, and any unique interests you may have, such as birdwatching or photography. This enables your guide to customize your safari adventures based on your interests and budget. Mention any possible restrictions. Any physical restrictions or sensitivity should be disclosed to your guide to guarantee a fun and safe trip.

Pose inquiries. Never be afraid to ask questions about anything that piques your curiosity, be it local customs or the behavior of animals. Your guide holds a wealth of information that is just waiting to be discovered.

African safaris are an ode to the diversity and grandeur of nature. Every excursion offers a chance for a profound and intimate connection with nature. However, in a world full of breathtaking locations, the real art of travel is in how you take in each one. Each destination has a spirit of its own, and you can make transforming vacation experiences with the correct itinerary in addition to ones that are simply memorable.

Whether you’re traveling to the wild African savannahs or the charming countryside of Tuscany, creating a one-of-a-kind, dreamlike trip requires careful planning and vital information. It all comes down to creating a seamless, stress-free, and uniquely personalized tapestry of memories.

People Also Ask

How far should my Africa safari trip be scheduled? It’s advisable to make reservations eight to twelve months in advance of when you wish to go or depart for your selected African safari location. Enough time guarantees availability and your place at the top of the line for the most desirable experiences that Africa presents. It is always better to schedule your safari trip earlier than undergo a last-minute rush.

When is the ideal time to go on an Africa safari trip? The dry season, which runs from June to October, is the ideal time to go on a safari. Since it’s a warmer period of the year, there’s a greater chance that you’ll spot creatures looking for water. You can also witness the famous Masai Mara migration during these months.

‘This Will Finish Us’

How Gulf princes, the safari industry, and conservation groups are displacing the Maasai from the last of their Serengeti homeland

I t was high safari season in Tanzania, the long rains over, the grasses yellowing and dry. Land Cruisers were speeding toward the Serengeti Plain. Billionaires were flying into private hunting concessions. And at a crowded and dusty livestock market far away from all that, a man named Songoyo had decided not to hang himself, not today, and was instead pinching the skin of a sheep.

“Please!” he was saying to a potential buyer with thousands of animals to choose from on this morning. “You can see, he is so fat!”

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The buyer moved on. Songoyo rubbed his eyes. He was tired. He’d spent the whole night walking, herding another man’s sheep across miles of grass and scrub and pitted roads to reach this market by opening time. He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. He’d somehow fended off an elephant with a stick. What he needed to do was sell the sheep so their owner would pay him, so he could try to start a new life now that the old one was finished.

The old life: He’d had all the things that made a person such as him rich and respected. Three wives, 14 children, a large compound with 75 cows and enough land to graze them—“such sweet land,” he would say when he could bear to think of it—and that was how things had been going until recently.

The new life: no cows, because the Tanzanian government had seized every single one of them . No compound, because the government had bulldozed it, along with hundreds of others. No land, because more and more of the finest, lushest land in northern Tanzania was being set aside for conservation, which turned out to mean for trophy hunters, and tourists on “bespoke expeditions,” and cappuccino trucks in proximity to buffalo viewing—anything and anyone except the people who had lived there since the 17th century, the pastoralists known as the Maasai.

They were the ones tourists saw through their windshields selling beaded key chains at the gates of Serengeti National Park, or performing dances after dinner at safari lodges. They were famous for their red shawls and recycled-tire sandals. They grazed their cattle with zebras and giraffes, and built mud-and-dung houses encircled by stick fences barely distinguishable from the wild landscape. They were among the lightest-living people on the planet, and yet it was the Maasai who were being told that the biggest threat to conservation and national progress was them. Their whole way of life had to go.

From the April 2020 issue: Ed Yong on the last giraffes on Earth

And so Songoyo, after considering his alternatives, had devised a last-ditch plan for his own survival, one that had brought him to a town in Kenya called Aitong, where a cool wind was slapping sand and dung into his face as he scanned the market for buyers. He was far from home, roughly 65 miles north of the village in Tanzania where he had been tear-gassed and shot at for the first time in his life. He had seen elderly men beaten and guns fired at old women, and now it was down to this: He was a herder for hire, working for a distant relative, trying to make enough money to buy one single cow.

“Come!” he called to the buyers who kept passing his herd and weaving through the bleating mass. “You will not find any better!”

This was his plan: one cow, because that was the starting point of what it meant to be a Maasai man, which was what he still wanted to be.

The forces arrayed against Songoyo, whom I met in the course of two long trips to Tanzania late last year, include some of the world’s most powerful people and interests. (I have not used Songoyo’s last name out of concern for his safety.) What these people and interests want is what the Maasai are trying to keep: the land they live on.

Global leaders are seeking what they consider to be undeveloped land to meet a stated goal of conserving 30 percent of the planet’s surface by 2030 . Corporations want undisturbed forests in order to offset pollution. Western conservation groups, which refer to the Maasai as “stakeholders” on their own land, exert great influence, as does a booming safari industry that sells an old and destructive myth—casting the Serengeti as some primordial wilderness, with the Maasai as cultural relics obstructing a perfect view.

The reality is that the Maasai have been stewards, integral to creating that very ecosystem. The same can be said of Indigenous groups around the world, to whom conservation often feels like a land grab. In the past two decades, more than a quarter million Indigenous people have been evicted to make way for ecotourism, carbon-offset schemes, and other activities that fall under the banner of conservation. That figure is expected to soar.

For all its accomplishments, the cause of saving the planet has become a trillion-dollar business, a global scramble in which wealthy nations are looking to the developing world not just for natural resources, but for nature itself. The wealthy players include not only Europeans and Americans but Arabs and Chinese and others. On the African continent, political leaders are enthusiastic about what so-called green foreign investment might mean for their own economies (and, maybe, their bank accounts).

Such are the pressures being brought to bear on northern Tanzania, where the Maasai migrated with their cattle 400 years ago, settling in an area encompassing hundreds of thousands of square miles of grassy plains, acacia woodlands, rivers, lakes, snowcapped mountains, salt flats, forests, and some of the most spectacular wildlife on the planet. They called it Siringet, which in the Maa language means “the place where the land runs on forever.” The Maasai see their recent history as a struggle to save that land from those who claimed it needed saving.

First came the British colonial authorities, who established the 5,700-square-mile Serengeti National Park, pushing the Maasai to an adjacent zone called the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, with its famous crater, where they were promised they could live. Then came UNESCO. It declared both Serengeti and Ngorongoro to be World Heritage Sites, which came with new restrictions. Western tourists began arriving, seeking an experience of Africa that a thousand movies promised—one of pristine beauty and big game, not people grazing cattle. Tanzanian authorities began leasing blocks of land to foreign hunting and safari companies, many of which promoted themselves as conservationists—a word the Maasai have come to associate with their own doom. Spread among the villages that dot the northern tourist zone, the Maasai have meanwhile been growing in number—their population has doubled in recent decades, to about 200,000. Inevitably, the clash of interests has led to bitter and occasionally violent conflict.

Still, the threat unfolding now is of greater magnitude. It emerged soon after President Samia Suluhu Hassan took office, in 2021. “Tourism in Ngorongoro is disappearing,” she declared during one of her first major speeches. “We agreed that people and wildlife could cohabitate, but now people are overtaking the wildlife.” The Maasai listened with alarm, realizing that the people she was referring to were them.

Not long after Hassan’s speech, officials announced plans to resettle the roughly 100,000 Maasai who were living in and around Ngorongoro to “modern houses” in another part of the country. Meanwhile, in a region north of Ngorongoro, bordering Serengeti National Park, government security forces began rolling into Maasai villages. They were carrying out another part of the plan: annexing 580 square miles of prime grazing land to create an exclusive game reserve for the Dubai royal family, which had long hunted in the area. The government characterized the move as necessary for conservation. Traditional Maasai compounds, known as bomas , were burned. Park rangers began seizing cattle by the tens of thousands.

And more was coming: a $7.5 billion package with the United Arab Emirates , of which Dubai is a part, that included new plans for tourism and conservation. A $9.5 million deal with the Chinese for a geological park that overlapped with additional Maasai villages. An offer from Tanzania to make Donald Trump Jr.—an avid trophy hunter—an official “tourism ambassador.” New maps and proposals from the government indicated that further tracts could soon be placed off-limits, including a sacred site that the Maasai call the Mountain of God.

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“This is 80 percent of our land,” a Maasai elder told me one evening during a meeting with other leaders in northern Tanzania. “This will finish us.” They had tried protesting. They had filed lawsuits. They had appealed to the United Nations , the European Union , the East African Court of Justice, and Vice President Kamala Harris when she visited Tanzania in 2023. They’d unearthed old maps and village titles to prove that the land was theirs by law, not just by custom. They’d written a letter to John and Patrick McEnroe after hearing that the tennis stars were hosting a $25,000-a-person safari-and-tennis expedition in the Serengeti. People made supportive statements, but no one was coming to help.

This is what Songoyo understood as he paced the market in Aitong. It was closing soon. Buyers were filtering out through the wire fence, and he still had 12 sheep left to sell, one of which was lame. A man tapped it with a stick.

“A cow stepped on his leg; that’s why he walks like that,” Songoyo said, bracing the animal with his knees.

The man walked away. Another came and tapped his stick on the lame sheep, and then on the rest of them. They agreed on a price, and the buyer pulled out a roll of bills.

“Please, can you add 500?” Songoyo said, asking for the equivalent of an extra $3.60 in Kenyan shillings. “I need 500. Please.”

The man added 200, and Songoyo brought the day’s earnings to the relative who had hired him. They sat under a tree, and he counted out Songoyo’s share for a week of work, roughly $10. One cow would cost about $200.

“See you next week,” the man said.

“May God give you favor,” Songoyo replied, putting the money in the pocket of his blue track pants. His cellphone rang, a battered plastic burner.

“I am coming,” he told one of his wives, who was waiting for him at their home in Tanzania.

He’d had options other than this. There had always been Maasai who’d given up traditional ways to reinvent themselves, shedding their red shawls for all kinds of lives. Now many more of them, having lost their cattle, were moving to cities, where the Maasai reputation for bravery and rectitude meant there was always work as a security guard—I saw them everywhere in Arusha and Dar es Salaam, in front of shops and banks. Others had taken a government offer to resettle in a town called Msomera, far to the south, only to return home with stories of loneliness and conflict with locals. Still others were falling apart. Songoyo had seen them, drunk men hobbling along the road or passed out on their red shawls under trees in the daytime. That would not be him.

“Never,” he said, and began the long walk back to his village in Tanzania, a tall man wrapped in a pink-and-purple plaid shawl passing cinder-block taverns where he would not drink, and motorbikes he would not hire, because the point was to save money for the cow. No cows, no life , he told himself, picking up the pace along an orange dirt road stretching into the late afternoon.

His earliest memories were of cows; he had never been without them. They were the huge, warm, brown beasts kept in the center of the boma. Their dung formed the walls of his home. Their milk and blood were what he drank as a child, when his father told him what Maasai children were traditionally told: that when the earth split from the sky and God left the world, he entrusted the Maasai with all the cattle, and by extension the land and the other animals that shared it. Songoyo learned how to herd with rocks, pushing them around in the dirt. He got his first calf when he was a small boy, herding it with a stick near the boma. When he was big enough, he followed his older brothers out into the wider grazing areas, including one the Maasai called Osero , a word that refers to lush grasslands—in this case, the 580 square miles of land adjacent to Serengeti National Park where Maasai had lived and kept cattle for generations.

It was in Osero that he learned about different kinds of grasses and trees: which ones had good branches for bows or good bark for tea that could ease a backache. He learned where to find natural salt and the coolest streams, and he learned certain rules: Never cut down a tree. Keep cattle away from wildebeests during calving season, because they carry a disease deadly to cows.

He listened to older boys tell stories, including one whose lesson he still lived by, about a group of Maasai heading out on a cattle raid when one of the warriors broke his sandal. The warrior turned to the man behind him and asked if he would stay and help, but the man refused. He asked another, who also refused, and so on until the very last one agreed to stay, while the rest continued on to cattle-raiding glory. The stern moral was: Be prepared. Don’t fall behind. Stay with the group. Struggle.

Songoyo had struggled. He held himself together after his father died, when he was still a boy, a moment when he might have turned delinquent but didn’t. He endured his adolescent coming-of-age ceremonies with dignity, by all accounts managing not to cry or shake during his circumcision, when people scrutinize and taunt boys for any sign of weakness, and he was rewarded with cows. He learned how to shoot arrows and use a machete, and became a moran —entering a stage of life when young Maasai men bear responsibility for protecting their village—and was given more cows, each with a name, each with a certain character he came to know. In this way, the life he wanted became possible.

He married his first wife, then a second and a third, and eventually built a boma in the village where his children went to school, and a larger compound on the edge of Osero, where the cattle were kept, and where he’d had one of the happiest moments of his life. This was just before everything began to unravel, an otherwise ordinary day when the rains were full and the cows were fat and he’d walked out into the middle of them, their bells jangling, realizing how far he’d come and thinking, “Yes, I am a real Maasai.”

Not that life was an idyll. In village after village that I visited, people described years of tensions with safari companies and conservation authorities. People who lived within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area—a vast zone that was almost like its own country—had complained about schools falling apart and poisoned salt licks and the indignity of their identity being checked as they came and went through the tourist gate. In other areas, people had accused certain safari companies of illegally acquiring leases and paying local police to beat herders off concessions. One company was notorious for using a helicopter to spray scalding water on cows.

In Osero, the problems went back to 1992, when an Emirati company called Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC) was first granted a hunting license for the Dubai royal family. They had their own private camp and a private airstrip and, for the emir himself, Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, a compound on a hill, guarded by a special unit of the Tanzanian military police. When the rains ended each year, cargo planes full of four-wheelers and tents and pallets of food would buzz low over villages before landing, followed by private jets delivering the royal family and their guests. A few weeks later, they’d buzz out with carcasses of zebras and antelope and other trophies. For a while, OBC had its own cellphone tower, and Maasai villagers noticed that when they were near it, a message would pop up on their phone screens: “Welcome to the U.A.E.” The arrangement had been that the Maasai were supposed to keep away when the royals were in residence, but just about everyone had caught a glimpse. Songoyo had seen them speeding around, shooting animals from trucks with semiautomatic rifles. “Once, they pulled up in the middle of my cows and I saw them shooting so many antelope,” he told me. “They just kill, kill, kill!”

There had been attempts at diplomacy. Sometimes the Arabs, as the Maasai called them, would give out bags of rice. They had hired Maasai men to work as guides and drivers and had flown some of their favorite employees to Dubai, buying them clothing and cars. One driver recalled being at the camp on a day when the emir arrived. The driver lined up with other staff, and the emir greeted each one of them while an assistant followed behind with a large bag of cash, inviting each worker to reach in. The driver said he pulled out $1,060.

But a bitterness was always there. Maasai leaders had long claimed that Osero belonged to 14 adjacent villages, and that they had never consented to the OBC deal. Tanzanian officials asserted authority over not only Osero but a far larger expanse—Loliondo—citing its colonial-era designation as a game-controlled area; they often resorted to violence to enforce this view. Maasai villagers described to me how government security forces had collaborated with OBC at least twice in recent years to conduct a large-scale torching of bomas in the vicinity of the camp. Young men grazing cows had been beaten and shot at. One man described to me being shot in the face, then handcuffed to a hospital bed as he was bleeding through his ears and nose and eyes, slipping in and out of consciousness. He remembered a police officer shouting at a doctor to let him die, and the doctor refusing the order and saving his life. He lost his left eye, the socket now scarred over with skin, and had kept a thin blue hospital receipt all these years in the hope of receiving restitution that never came. Most villages have people who can tell such stories.

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In 2017, amid rising complaints and lawsuits filed by Maasai leaders, Tanzanian authorities suspended OBC’s license and accused the company’s director of offering some $2 million in bribes to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, which led to a court case that ended in a plea deal. Requests to interview OBC executives, representatives of the Dubai royal family, and officials of the U.A.E. government about their involvement in Tanzania went unanswered.

By the time Hassan became president, in 2021, the director was back on the job and the OBC flights had resumed.

Samia Suluhu Hassan was widely embraced by West and East. Her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died in office, had been a populist with an authoritarian streak and became infamous for downplaying the dangers of COVID. He suspended media outlets, banned opposition rallies, and alienated foreign investors, even as many Maasai saw him as a hero for brushing back OBC.

Hassan eased his more repressive policies and embarked on an ambitious plan to bring foreign investment into the country, especially through tourism. She branded herself a forward-looking environmentalist.

And she found willing collaborators. The World Bank had been encouraging more tourism , arguing that it could help Tanzania achieve what official metrics define as middle-income status. One of the country’s main conservation partners, UNESCO, had been pressing Tanzanian authorities for years to implement what it called “stringent policies to control population growth” in Ngorongoro, although UNESCO also says it has never supported the displacement of people. A German conservation group called the Frankfurt Zoological Society, a major partner in managing Serengeti National Park, has expressed concern that traditional Maasai practices are becoming less tenable because of population growth. “There is a risk of overuse and overgrazing that should be addressed,” Dennis Rentsch, the deputy director of the society’s Africa department, told me. “I don’t want to vilify the Maasai. They are not enemies of conservation. But the challenge is when you reach a tipping point.”

In response to these pressures, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism produced a report that blamed rising Maasai and livestock populations for “extensive habitat destruction” in conservation zones. It recommended resettling all of Ngorongoro’s Maasai. It also recommended designating the 580-square-mile Osero tract, farther away, as a more restrictive game reserve, describing the land as an important wildlife corridor and water-catchment area for the Serengeti ecosystem. The designation left the Dubai royal family with an exclusive hunting playground. But none of the Maasai who lived in the area would be allowed to graze their cattle or continue living there.

Maasai leaders countered with two reports of their own—more than 300 pages covering colonial history, constitutional law, land-use law, and international conventions, and providing copies of village titles, registration certificates, and old maps—to prove their legal right to the land as citizens. They blamed habitat destruction on sprawling lodges, roads bisecting rangeland, trucks off-roading across savannas, and “huge tourist traffic.” Overgrazing was a result of being squeezed into ever smaller domains, which kept the Maasai from rotating grazing zones as they normally would. Citing their own surveys, they said the government had inflated livestock numbers, a claim supported by Pablo Manzano, a Spanish ecologist with the Basque Centre for Climate Change, who had conducted research in the region and found that the government was perpetuating a tragic misunderstanding.

Manzano and others pointed to a growing body of scholarly research demonstrating what the Maasai had long known: that their management of the land did not degrade the Serengeti ecosystem but had actually helped sustain and even create it—the grasslands the Maasai had cultivated for hundreds of years were the same grasslands that many wild animals needed to thrive. In that sense, the land had already been conserved before the Germans, the British, and various international groups decided that they needed to save it.

In their reports, Maasai leaders concluded that the government was engaged in “a calculated process to wipe out animals” and to “devastate their livelihood and culture.” They took a bus to the capital and delivered the two reports in person to government officials.

But there would be no debate, no discussion of complexities. Hassan moved forward with her agenda. She was finalizing the $7.5 billion package with the United Arab Emirates, the fourth-largest (after China, the EU, and the U.S.) investor in Africa. One deal turned over management of roughly two-thirds of Dar es Salaam’s port to DP World, a company owned by the U.A.E. government. Another deal turned over management of some 20 million acres of forest —roughly 8 percent of the nation’s entire territory—to a company called Blue Carbon, which is run by a member of the royal family, Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, and uses conserved land to generate carbon credits that it sells to other companies. The package also included money for tourism.

Hassan invited travel agents to the country for a “tourism reboot.” She spoke of wanting more five-star hotels. She filmed a promotional documentary called The Royal Tour , which at one point involved helicoptering with a travel reporter over some Maasai villages near the Serengeti.

“All those round things down there are the Maasai bomas,” Hassan says in the film, as several villagers look up into the sky. The reporter then comments in a way that Maasai leaders found ominous: “Over the years, the Tanzanian government has tried to persuade the Maasai to become traditional farmers or ranchers, but they’ve persisted in clinging to their ancient ways. And yet, they may not have a choice now.”

Some 400 miles to the south, in the hotter, flatter farming area of Msomera, bulldozers broke ground on a new development. The military was building 5,000 cinder-block houses intended for Maasai families. Officials had been dispatched to villages in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to present the government’s offer: a free house on 2.5 acres. Electricity. Piped water. New schools. A cash bonus of roughly $4,000 for early takers. At one such presentation, a crowd pelted the officials with rocks.

I requested an interview with Hassan to better understand her decisions. In response, a government spokesperson arranged interviews with several other officials, one of whom was Albert Msando, a district commissioner, who told me, “Whatever I am answering is whatever the president would have answered.” We met in the town of Handeni, near Msomera. Msando’s office was inside a former British-colonial building, where a portrait of Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s founding father, hung on one wall and a portrait of Hassan hung on another.

“For the public interest,” Msando said of the Maasai, “we have to relocate them.” A lawyer by training and demeanor, Msando emphasized that any relocation is voluntary, at least for now. He also made it clear that if persuasion fails, the government maintains the legal right to remove the Maasai from conservation areas, by force if necessary. “That’s why there are guys here with their shoulders decorated,” Msando said, pointing around the room to police and military officers.

He told me that anyone in Tanzania would be lucky to get what the Maasai were getting. “We are giving them nice houses, I believe, according to modern standards.” He said that the Maasai currently live in “filthy conditions” and should be helped to “live a better life.”

He and other officials I spoke with said that they disliked even using the term Maasai . They invoked the spirit of Nyerere, saying that Tanzania was supposed to have a national identity, not tribal ones. Msando said he could understand the Maasai’s concern about losing their culture, even if he had little sympathy for it. “Culture is a fluid thing,” he said. “I am Chaga—the Chaga were on the verge of having their own nation. Today look at me. People do not even know I’m Chaga. My kids don’t even speak Chaga.” He was unapologetic: “The Maasai are not exempted from acculturation or cultural acclimatization, or cultural extinction.”

The government’s plans moved forward. In June 2022, a convoy of trucks carrying hundreds of security personnel rolled into the 14 villages bordering Osero, a show of force that the Maasai had never seen before. Soldiers, police, and park rangers set up camps on the outskirts of each village, announcing their intention to demarcate the boundary of the new game reserve. What happened next unfolded sporadically over several days. It has been documented in reports by human-rights groups and was described to me by dozens of witnesses and victims.

First, village leaders summoned to what was billed as a routine ruling-party meeting were arrested after they refused to go along with the demarcation—27 of them in all. The security forces then began planting a long line of three-foot-high rectangular cement markers called beacons along the perimeter of Osero. Villagers came behind them, kicking the markers down before the concrete foundations had set; women hacked at them with machetes. “I felt like I was fighting for myself,” one woman told me later. “I knew if this land goes away, there is nowhere for my children to be, and that forced me to lose my fear.” But the security forces kept beating the villagers back. Elders called more than 1,000 moran to take up positions with bows and arrows in forested areas along a main road where government trucks were patrolling.

“How many are ready to die?” a leader said to the group, and at some point, one of them shot an arrow at a police officer, killing him.

After that, the security forces opened fire. They shot at the legs of elderly women waving grass as a sign of peace. They shot an elderly man, who fell and then was heaped onto a truck “like a sack of maize,” his son told me. He has not been found. The security forces shot at men and women trying to destroy the beacons, wounding them in their arms and legs and backs. They shot tear gas into bomas and burst into one where a traditional ceremony was being held, firing into the crowd. The moran waited for orders to retaliate, but the elders, seeing what the government was willing to do, called them off. “It’s only because we didn’t have guns,” a Maasai elder told me. “If someone helped us with guns, they cannot even fight with us, because they are very cowardly.” Another elder said, “You cannot fight a gun with arrows.”

Dozens of people with bullet and machete wounds, blocked by police from local clinics, limped their way across the border into Kenya for treatment. Several thousand more fled there for safety. Others hid in the forest. Then the burning and bulldozing began. For several days, security forces plowed through circles of stick fences. They crushed houses and corrals and lit the debris on fire, burning more than 300 bomas, including Songoyo’s, and finishing the work before the start of high safari season. In a statement issued a few days after the violence , the Tanzanian government said the new game reserve had “no settlements as it is alleged and therefore there is no eviction” taking place. It described what had happened as “normal practice for all wildlife and forest protected areas in Tanzania”—a necessary step to keep the Serengeti ecosystem from being “disrupted and eventually erased from the face of the Earth.”

Songoyo’s boma had been by a hot spring. His father’s and grandfather’s graves were nearby. In the aftermath of the violence, he moved his family and cattle from Osero to a smaller boma nearer to his village, where he and others returned from hiding to find homes ransacked and skeletons of cows that had been eaten by wild animals.

Security forces roamed up and down the roads. Officials called people into immigration offices and accused them of being Kenyans, requiring them to show up in court for weeks on end, until judges threw out their cases for lack of evidence. Rangers patrolled Osero more heavily than ever, shooting at and beating herders who went anywhere near the new reserve, punishments that now came with a kind of psychological torture—forcing people to consent to the legitimacy of their own dispossession. One young man told me that rangers dragged him to their truck and beat him on his back with a stick for hours, calling him “rubbish” and yelling, “You don’t agree this land was taken? We will punish you until you agree!” They would feed him cornmeal, he said, and beat him some more. But he never did agree. Now he can barely walk.

The Maasai had other problems. One was grass: There was not enough. Everywhere I went, I saw bony cows picking at short clumps of weeds in dry patches of dirt. Out of desperation, some people were taking their cows to graze in Kenya, while others were sneaking into Osero at night. To avoid alerting rangers, cows went in without bells, making them harder to keep track of in the dark. Herders used cheap flashlights for safety, shining them fleetingly in the bush to detect the eyes of lions and other predators. They struggled to keep themselves awake, wearing small radios around their necks, playing tinny music at a low volume only they could hear.

Another problem was worse: Rangers were seizing cattle. Not just a few here and there, but huge herds of them, by the hundreds and then by the thousands. One day, Songoyo got a call from his brother, who had been grazing Songoyo’s 75 cows near Osero with other herders.

He said rangers had chased them down and seized more than 700 cattle, including all of Songoyo’s. He said the rangers had then crossed with the cattle into Serengeti National Park, and were holding them in a pen. Songoyo imagined them staying like that, not eating, not drinking. He imagined his favorite, Kiripa, a brown heifer he could always count on to lead the other cattle to distant grasses and home again, slowly dying, and rushed with the other owners to the park gate.

“I tried to reason with the rangers, but I totally failed—it was like they were ready to shoot us,” he recalled, and so the group contacted a Maasai lawyer, Melau Alais, whose practice had been overwhelmed by such emergency calls in the past year.

After several days, Songoyo learned that the rangers were alleging that the cattle had been illegally grazing inside Serengeti National Park, and that they would all be auctioned off unless the owners prevailed in court. The court was in a town called Mugumu, clear on the other side of the park, a two-hour drive away. The hearing was in a few days. So Songoyo and the other owners scrambled together the park fees and set off in the lawyer’s car past lush green grass and fat, grazing zebras and Land Cruisers full of tourists enjoying the scenery. When they reached the courthouse, the owner whom they had elected to represent all of the owners in the case, a man named Soloi Toroge, was formally charged with illegal grazing and jailed until the hearing.

The next day, Songoyo and the others sat in the gallery as Toroge took the stand. Both Songoyo and Alais recalled for me the day in the courtroom.

“So what happened?” Alais asked Toroge, and as the defendant began telling the story of how the rangers had beaten the herders and taken the cattle, Songoyo said he felt his anger rising.

Alais asked Toroge how he knew the cows were his, and as he described their particular colors and markings, Songoyo thought about his own cows, and became more desperate.

At another point, Alais asked Toroge how many children he had, and as Songoyo thought about his own, he began to feel physically ill.

“So what other business do you do?” Alais continued.

Toroge said he depended only on livestock.

“This livestock, or others?” Alais asked him.

This livestock, he answered. There was no other.

“So if the court decides to auction the cattle, what will happen?” Alais asked.

“All of us will die of hunger,” Toroge answered.

As he continued, Songoyo remembered thinking that this was it. That he really was about to lose everything he’d worked his whole life to achieve—not because of drought or his own foolishness, but because of his government, and the Arabs, and something called conservation. He said he began making noises, and felt himself becoming so disoriented, so altered, that he thought he could kill someone, or that someone might kill him, and soon people were surrounding him, court officers threatening to arrest him. Songoyo was saying, “Then let us die. There is no special death.”

He did not return for the other days of testimony. He was back in his village when Alais called to tell him that the judge had ruled that the cows would be auctioned off unless the owners paid a fine, and that his share—calculated per head of cattle, per day, for more than 30 days and counting—would be roughly $5,000.

He briefly considered what others had done, which was borrow money from a Somali loan shark who was doing a brisk business, but decided that was no solution.

“Let them sell them all,” he told Alais.

He did not leave his boma for days.

Normally, relatives and neighbors would give someone in his position one of their cows to help him rebuild, but nothing was normal any longer. More than 50,000 head of cattle had been taken by rangers, according to a local tally. Between the seized cattle and the fines, a huge transfer of wealth was under way from the Maasai community to the government.

People came by Songoyo’s boma to say they were sorry. They tried to encourage him. He considered what to do. He could be a security guard. He imagined standing still for hours in front of some building in Arusha. Then he began thinking that death would be preferable. Traditional Maasai cosmology includes no afterlife, no reward or punishment in the hereafter, so that would be that. Hanging or poison were the usual methods; hanging was more certain. Then he thought about his children. “And I said no,” he recalled. He told himself what others had told him since his father had died. He was a hard worker. He knew how to struggle. He thought, “Maybe something good is ahead of me.” He thought that if he just kept going, “God will bless me for that.”

He tore down a large corral where he had kept his cattle and built a smaller one for the seven goats he still had, and for the one cow he hoped to buy. He remembered a distant relative, a businessman in Kenya; they got in touch, and the plan was set: Pick up the livestock at a market near his village. Herd them across the border to a market in Kenya, and if he didn’t sell them there, go on to Aitong, a roughly 130-mile circuit every week. He had been doing this for months.

When he got home from Aitong, he would give half the money he’d earned to his wives for food. He would rest, and then start out again. He noticed himself becoming skinnier.

Songoyo headed north with his next herd of sheep, through a clearing with a seasonal stream and smooth rocks. He skirted Serengeti National Park, where he was not allowed to be, then crossed over a low mountain range that marked the Tanzania-Kenya border, his sandals splitting at the soles. At the gates of the park, some of the half a million people who visit every year were lining up in Land Cruisers, the bumpers displaying flag decals representing the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the United States. And as the sun rose one morning, in they went, tourists with bucket lists, anniversaries, dreams, and romanticized images in mind.

They roamed the dirt roads through grassy plains that really did seem to stretch on forever—a rolling sea of greens and yellows and flat-topped trees. They slowed for herds of gazelles and elephants. They sped to a leopard sighting in trucks bearing the wishful names of various outfitters—Sense of Africa, Lion King Adventures, Peacemakers Expeditions—and soon they began gathering along one side of the Mara River.

On the other side, great black herds of wildebeests were massing, waiting for the right moment to dive off a small cliff and swim across. What the animals saw waiting for them was a long line of trucks, a metal fortification.

“I want a picture!” said a woman hoisting her camera.

“My God, I want them to come down!” said her companion.

An hour passed. Another hour. The wildebeests were not migrating. A Maasai driver grumbled that obviously there were too many trucks. A man pressed binoculars to his face.

“See, it looks fine to us, but to them, something’s not right,” he said.

He wondered if it was crocodiles. They waited. A woman took a nap. Then some wildebeests began moving downriver, opposite some gaps in the otherwise solid wall of trucks. And then one hurled itself over the cliff in heroic fashion, and soon they were all diving.

“They’re flying!” someone said.

The animals were flailing, tumbling, and splashing down into the river, swimming for their lives, and now engines were cranking as trucks roared toward the crossing point, wedging into every open gap.

“We got ’em!” yelled a woman holding up a camera, and as far as anyone could see, the view was wildebeests, river, trees, and the grassy savanna beyond—no cows, no goats, no Maasai herders, no people at all, except the ones beholding the spectacle they’d been promised.

What they could not see was a tall man in blue track pants and a pink-and-purple plaid shawl herding sheep across a rocky path, trying not to think about how his knees hurt, his ankles hurt; trying to forget about all that had come before now.

Songoyo reached the first market, where he did not sell the sheep but picked up some more animals for another client and kept going, heading for Aitong.

It was late afternoon when he began crossing the Maasai Mara—the Kenyan national park—with only a stick for protection because bows and arrows are not allowed in the park. He hustled the sheep through the bush, past thorns, under branches, over sharp rocks and soft grass. He saw zebras. He saw giraffes . At one point, he saw a lion, which began following him, then another, coming closer and closer, and as he began to think that this would be how his life ended, a tourist truck came speeding along the road and scared the lion away, and he took off running with the sheep until he came upon elephants—“So, so many elephants,” he said—and managed to dodge those, too.

He kept walking, trying to stay alert. The night was moonless and very dark. After some hours, he reached the edge of the park and saw a boma—a cultural boma, as it turned out, the kind set up for tourists, where Maasai act out versions of the life now being extinguished—and asked if he could sleep there, but the people at the park said that was against the rules, even though welcoming him would have been the true Maasai way. So he waited outside a while and then entered anyway, lying down in a corner. It was cold, and he felt himself becoming sick.

He reached Aitong the next morning but still didn’t sell the sheep, and this meant he would have to press on another 50 miles to a town called Kilgoris. By now he was so exhausted that he decided to sleep, and this was when, as he put it, “evil came during the night,” in the form of a hyena that killed five of his sheep, two of which belonged to the new client. When Songoyo called to tell him, the man told Songoyo that he would have to repay him for the animals. Songoyo told him he didn’t have any money. The man said in that case, he would have to work without pay. Songoyo set off for Kilgoris, now in debt.

He walked along a dirt road as trucks blasted him with fumes. He walked across one farm after another. He felt so hungry. At times he knelt on the ground and said, “God, can you see this?,” then got up and kept going. Another farm. A man who gave him water. A man who yelled at him to get off his land. A tree where he took a nap. His dreams lately were of cows grazing in lush grass, and of dying. More hours crossing an area that belonged to a rival pastoralist tribe, sneaking along the edges and behind stands of trees, feeling like a thief, he said, feeling like he had no place to be in this world. He kept going like that, across more land that was not his.

The land Songoyo considered his was now part of the new Pololeti Game Reserve . That was what Osero had become. The government had constructed a gate bearing the name along the main road into the area, not far from where Songoyo’s boma had been, and when the Dubai royal family was not around, tourists could pay a fee and go inside.

“As far as you can see, all this is now Pololeti,” said a Maasai driver who had grown up on the land and been away from it for a year, ever since the violence. “I feel like crying.” The only reason he was able to go inside now was that I had hired him as a guide.

What he saw was miles and miles of a particular grass that was good for cattle, at the moment so tall and golden. “If your cows are weak and they eat this, in two days they will stand,” he said, driving ahead.

He saw the yellowing tops of grasses that zebras favored, and thick, wetter grasses that wildebeests favored. He saw some impalas in the distance and said, “I wish to see my goats there,” because they would usually graze together.

He saw wiry red oat grasses, and thick swirls of cattail grasses, and here was the kind of acacia with bark that helped with nausea and there was the tree with large, rough leaves useful for sanding down a staff. He saw lavender morning glories used for tissues, and a sacred stream whose water was used for ceremonies. He smelled the familiar scent of bush mint in the cool afternoon, and heard such a strange quiet without the bells of cows.

“In this area, in the evening, you’d see so many cows,” the driver said, and soon he reached a clearing where it was possible to see grass pressed into faint circles.

“Over here used to be houses,” he said.

“Over here, there used to be more than 20 bomas,” he said, continuing on.

“Here used to be a boma, because you can tell the difference between this grass and the other grass,” he said. “We always have soft-soft.”

He navigated by trees he remembered and small hills he knew by heart.

“Here was a very large boma—you can see the fence,” he said, pointing to some scattered branches with thorns. He continued on.

“Over here was the Pyando family,” he said, passing a certain spot in the grass.

“The Kairungs were here,” he said, but it was hard to tell.

“Here were the Saing’eus,” he said, pointing to black weeds that grew where cow dung had been.

Here lived the Purengeis and the Ngiyos. The Kutishos, the Oltinayos, the Kikanais, the Mungas. A whole world that would soon be gone with no trace.

The driver turned and headed back toward the gate, noting a road that led up to a compound on the mountain, where the emir could look down and enjoy one of the most magnificent landscapes on Earth, with no cows or bomas or red shawls obstructing the view.

“Just imagine,” the driver said, and soon he was passing a line of white beacons.

“Oh, our land,” he said, exiting through the gate, wondering what would become of all the life that had been here.

One answer was taking shape 5,000 miles to the north, in the United Arab Emirates, at a place called Sharjah Safari park. It had been open a year, a project sponsored by an Emirati royal who wished to re-create the experience of a real African safari. It was an hour’s drive from the Dubai airport, out along a smooth, straight highway lined with green palms and bright-yellow marigolds, past mirrored skyscrapers, many mosques, discount strip malls, a crematorium, camels, and miles of desert.

At the entrance was a concrete elephant. The $75 gold package entitled visitors to tour 12 distinct African landscapes with animals procured from Africa itself, and on a 70-degree December day, tourists climbed into a modified Land Cruiser that whisked them through a series of metal gates.

“Savanna,” the tour guide said as the first gate slid open to reveal some fake termite mounds, some half-dead acacia trees, and a living waterbuck. “Ngorongoro,” she said as another gate slid open, revealing a few gazelles and four white rhinos. “Serengeti,” she said, and on it went.

Soon the tour arrived at the last exhibit: “Boma.” At the end of a curved path lined with grass was a collection of round structures made of cement, not mud and dung, with wooden doors and thatched roofs. There was a corral with goats and donkeys. And here and there were signs with cartoons explaining life in this place. One of them included a drawing of a man. He was wearing a blue-plaid shawl. His features were simply drawn, and he stared blank-faced from the confines of a rectangular wood frame.

When he saw the low mountain range, Songoyo felt a burst of energy, knowing he was near home, such as it was, the place where he was trying to start over. He crossed the clearing with the smooth rocks, and soon he arrived at a grassy slope, and there were the remnants of the larger corral he’d torn down, and there was the smaller one he’d built for the goats and the cow he still could not buy, a circle of sticks with jackets and plaid shawls drying on top. There was a mud-walled house, and a child running out of it.

His wife made him some tea. He gave her money for the market. He’d made roughly $20 on this trip, but of course he was now in debt for the sheep the hyena had killed. They discussed which neighbors were still around. So many had left. Then Songoyo went outside to check on his seven goats.

He looked inside the corral. Four, he counted. Another two were running around outside, so that made six. He kept looking. He walked to where the old corral used to be, then back to the new corral. No goat. He began walking faster, looking around the house. Still no goat. He walked farther out into the grass, seeing nothing, becoming more alarmed.

“Where’s the other one?” he said. “There is one missing!”

His wife came outside and began looking too. He ran out beyond a thorn fence and into the taller grass, now frantic, scanning the landscape for all that he had left of a vanishing life he loved and still wanted.

He kept looking, and finally he spotted the goat. It was sitting in the grass. As he came nearer, he saw that it was injured. A back leg was bloody, and seemed to have gotten stuck in some thorns. Songoyo knelt down to examine the wound more closely. He was a Maasai man without a cow, in debt, getting skinnier, and now he was shaking his head.

“Who did this?” he shouted, expecting no answer.

This article appears in the May 2024 print edition with the headline “The Great Serengeti Land Grab.”