Everything about the wildebeest is amusing, so much so that the presence or absence of this antelope cannot go unnoticed. In her book, Portraits in the Wild, Cynthia Moss describes wildebeests as absurd-looking animals, often making weird dancing around movements when excited. There were fears that the species was becoming extinct in Amboseli National Park as less than 50 individuals were counted during the peak of last year’s drought. The March 2010 total count of the Amboseli ecosystem revealed that 83% of the wildebeests had died. See earlier post. However, in the last one month, about 1000 wildebeests have arrived in the Park. A combination of smell and sound is believed to have enabled them to detect early rains afar and those that left late last year were able to survive. They have now come back to the Park, but with just a few calves this time (wildebeest calves are born each year in February-March).The majority of these returning individuals are noted to be females, but there are also some territorial males in place. The wildebeest rut, when mating takes place, is occurring now in June, and thus we expect many calves to be born next year and the progressive recovery of the wildebeest population in Amboseli.