On July 21, 2025, wildlife guide and photographer, Nick Kleer, posted an Instagram reel and photo that showed a crush of tourists watching the great Masai Mara wildebeest migration in the Serengeti.
“Herds were forced to scatter, some ran for cliffs and jumped in panic,” he noted in his post. As many as 150 vehicles, lined five-deep along the length of the river bank at just one crossing, had ushered in crowds of passengers who alighted to watch the spectacle as if they were seated in the Colosseum.
The annual migration starts in Tanzania’s southeastern Serengeti and moves north to Kenya’s Masai Mara before returning each fall.
The Tanzania Association of Tour Operators condemned the activity in a press shared by Kleer on X. The Tanzania National Parks said that it is illegal for visitors to exit their vehicles and that they would follow up with strict disciplinary measures for each of the vehicle guides.
The outcry has been covered by news outlets in the UK, Africa and Europe since then. As shown by the nonprofit Serengeti Watch, it is part of a persistent overtourism problem. —Ian Vorster