Views from Above: Light Airplanes and Wildlife Research and Management in the Serengeti during the 1950s and 1960s

Abstract

Long-term evaluations of population numbers and the movement of migrating herds are regarded as essential to devising effective conservation strategies. Since the late 1950s, observation from the air has played an important role in monitoring migration in large protected areas with difficult terrain, such as the Serengeti National Park. The introduction of light airplanes, such as Cessnas and Piper Super Cubs, into zoological fieldwork supported new ideas about land use by colonial game wardens and visiting researchers that dominated until the introduction of cheap cameras and, later, remote sensing by satellite.