Serengeti Research Institute

The Serengeti Research Project was established in 1961 and centred around the Michael Grzimek Memorial Laboratory at Banagi. Two scientists arrived to study wildebeest and zebra respectively. At this stage in the development of the Serengeti, the balance between research and management was maintained. But this was not to last.

[sic] founded, based on Michael Gzrimek Memorial Laboratory

founded as Serengeti Wildlife Research Centre

Serengeti Research Institute . . . . established 1966

Tanzania National Parks, with John Owen directing, created the Serengeti Research Institute (SRI) as a base where teams of scientists could unravel the complexities and tune into the cyclic, biological rhythms of this unique ecosystem.

under the leadership of its first scientific director, Dr. Hugh Lamprey, the institute hummed with the comings and goings of a large group of scientists from the United States and Europe.

was built with a major grant from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, and additional buildings were provided by the Caesar Kleburg Foundation [of Texas A & M University]. Operating costs were provided by the Ford Foundation, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and Tanzania National Parks.

Serengeti Research Institute established with Dr. Hugh Lamprey as its first Director

The resident population in the Seronora valley, including the Serengeti Research Institute and the new Seronera tourist lodge eventually reached the staggering total of 1,700 people, excluding visitors.

Finally in 1966 a large and expensive Research Institute costing over $600,000 to build was established four miles from Seronera, with a laboratory and housing for a director, deputy director, ecologist and up to twenty research scientists. The balance between management and research had finally been upset in no uncertain manner.

The arrogance of these scientists - with the ink hardly dry on their graduation papers - was unbelievable. I once heard them described at a Research meeting, chaired by a very eminent visiting Oxford professor, as ‘these brilliant young men at the height of their creative powers’! They obviously believed in this assessment and were sublimely confident that they had the answers to all East Africa’s game problems.

[Myles then goes on to describe how the scientists gradually increased the number of animals that they were killing as part of their experiments, until, partly following a visit by Martha Gellhorn, the policy was reviewed.]

Out of many hundreds of thousand of dollars spent on research in East Africa during the ‘fashionable’ decade of the 1960s, little if anything has been achieved to my knowledge. Far better if the money was spent on anti-poaching and education. How much was spent on research in East Africa during those heady years? I have heard the figure of $10,000,000 quoted by a man in a position to know. He may be right. One thing is sure: it was a great confidence trick, and virtually nothing has ever come out of it to help the hard-pressed animals of East Africa.

In 1966, Hugh left to become director of the famous Serengeti Research Institute, where many world-famous behaviourists and ecologists worked.

They were a skilled and demanding group who needed careful handling. Tanzania's government has, alas, not been as wise as Hugh had originally expected, and the SRI has suffered accordingly, causing him disappointment rather than anger -as was his way.

But all good things come to an end, and in late 1966 we were told that the newly formed Serengeti Research Institute were taking over all game work in the Park, and that they were also to take over the Super Cub. And so, in January 1967, Bravo Lima was handed over after flying an impeccable 1,940 hours in the Serengeti. She did well for the Research Institute, and was finally sold to some missionaries near Musoma, who wrecked her in a banana shamba while attempting a short landing.

Wildlife research in the Serengeti wound down in the mid 1970's. Tanzania was, by then, in the process of Africanization, a movement to replace expatriates with nationals. This resulted in the premature withdrawal of formidable research expertise and funding for the SRI.

...... the Serengeti Research Institute, the direct descendent of the Grzimek's pioneering effort, is one of the biggest and best known organisations coordinating the work of such researchers.

I arrived at Seronera in midafternoon, and next morning I saw Dr. Hugh Lamprey, director of the Institute. He could not, he said, speak for individual researchers - they worked independently and each would have to answer for himself - but he wouldcertainly do all he could to help.

.... We discussed grass management by deliberate burning. The value of burning, said Lamprey, was still an open question. New grass, which on the savanna sprouted within twentyfour or thirtysix hours of a rain shower, came up far stronger on burned land. Burning also kept gall acacia and other bush under control. But if done too often it impoverished the soil. Most people seemed to accept that. They did not agree on much else.

Lamprey smiled. "We held a grass management conference here just the other day. Experst from all over the world. But we couldn't get even two of them to agree on the best burning practices. The trouble is, nobody really knows." Burning, said Lamprey, was just the question the Institute had to tackle: its job was to pin down at least some of the basic facts..

In the Research Institute, [Hugh Lampey] was replaced by Dr. Tumaina Mcharo, a Tanzanian

At the present time all monitoring has ceased because of lack of funding.

In 1980, SRI's concept and infrastructure were altered to encompass research stations in several parks and reserves.

The community of wildlife researchers comprises another small but distinct subculture that is sometimes encountered in the most out-of-the-way places. Researchers are not generally friendly to tourists, however; some treat all visitors, no matter how well informed, as idiotic interlopers into their private domain. Naturally, they resent interference in their work. Avoid research facilities: they are off limits to all but known financial backers.

Hirji, Karim . . . . . Director Serengeti Wildlife Research Centre (SWRC)

The late Myles Turner, a warden in Serengeti during 1956-1972, wrote about research thus: 'One thing is sure: it was a great confidence trick, and virtually nothing has ever come out of it to help the hard-pressed animals of East Africa.' He has thrown down the challenge. We have accepted that challenge, and this book [Serengeti II] is part of the answer. It is not complete; we shall build on it and continue to work toward syntheses of research that allow its beneficial application. In the process, we hope to show that research is fundamental to management and conservation.