The plains of Ngorongoro Conservation Area make up the southeastern boundary of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. This portion of the protected area is used by some of the migrating herds of wildebeest during the wet season.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area was formed in 1959 when the boundaries for Serengeti National Park were redrawn and the eastern plains and Crater Highlands were excised from the park. Today, the area, covering 2,000 square miles, supports a wide variety of wildlife as well as 10,000 [G 29 / Masai] and their more than 100,000 cattle.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is famous for the volcanically formed [P 014 / Ngorongoro Crater] and the Olduvai Gorge. The ecosystem of Ngorongoro Crater is separate from that of the Serengeti and is not used by the migrating wildebeest. It covers 100 square miles and is rich in its diversity of wildlife and flora. With 50 black rhinoceros, the Crater is home to one of the last surviving populations in East Africa. Ngorongoro Crater also supports thousands of head of cattle owned by the Masai tribe which has restricted grazing rights in the crater.
Olduvai Gorge is about 30 miles west of Ngorongoro Crater and is the location of a famous archaeological site. In the 1930s, Drs. Louis and Mary Leakey began excavating in the gorge and in 1959 unearthed the 1.8 million-year-old remains of Homo habilis, the earliest member of modern man's genus. Since that time, the gorge has been the site of numerous archaeological finds that may push the history of man back several million years.
