Africa is home to spectacular migration events. Large mammals ranging from Grant’s gazelles to blue wildebeests pound their hooves across vast tracts of land as the seasons change. New research suggests, however, that migrations across the continent might be going extinct. For the first time, scientists have compiled and analyzed data on all of the world’s largest and definitive migrating land mammals. The researchers looked at the migration history for a group of ungulates, all of them hoofed mammals, weighing more than 44 pounds. The data suggest that one-quarter of these mammals no longer migrate, and human development is responsible for the decline, said Grant Harris, co-author of the study. In many cases, data on these animals is simply nonexistent. ‘I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s nothing here at all,’ and if there’s nothing here for these large mammals, this bodes poorly for other species,’ Harris told LiveScience. Harris, a conservation biologist, conducted the research while with the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He is now at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, N.M. The report was published in the April edition of […]