Hyaeni-dae

Last night I spent 2 hours watching the hyena’s gorging themselves on a dead horse. Now, you may think that is sad and disgusting but to be honest it was amazing. The horse belongs to one of the lodges that do horseback safaris in the reserve and it needed to be put down. So unfortunately, they put him down and put his carcass in the bush so the hyenas would have some yummy food. So around 9:30 pm we drove out to where the carcass was and the hyena were already there.

It was very interesting watching how they interacted with one another, such as the matriarch coming in and growling at the other females to back off so she could get her fill. We saw them greet each other by licking each other, we heard them communicate by grumbling noises to warn uncertain scents or sounds, we saw them fight over some of the more tasty parts of the carcass and scent marking, known as "pasting" to mark their territory. As we sat we watched as an unrelenting jackal kept coming in and trying to get some food. We were all rooting for the jackal because a) he is so cute and b) he was so sneaky. The jackal would come near and get some food run off with it and eat it and then come back for more but this time the Hyena would chase him off. He stayed around for the whole 2 hours darting in and around the hyena in hopes of getting even the smallest piece of meat. We also saw a wild cat skirting in and around the area too.

I was surprised to see how nervous they were, they would look up at any noise and run away at the slightest hint of danger, considering how many of them there are and how strong they are. We finally left the Hyena’s at 11:30 and they had eaten about 90% of the carcass but were still going strong.