Hyenas at Ivory Wilderness

We had small glimpses of spotted hyenas while up at Makuleke but we craved more. We got that in the Ivory Wilderness.

Pregnant hyena mother

Our first spotting of a hyena was driving out of our lodge area on our first game drive. Apparently there’s a nosy hyena that loves to hang out in the perimeter. We would see a few others sparingly as we wandered the reserve, but hit a gold mine when our guide took us on a treasure hunt to find a hyena cub den.

Hyena cubs at their den

If you want a fun read, go and learn about spotted hyena sexual organs and reproduction. Here’s a taste from Wikipedia:

The mating process is complicated, as the male’s penis enters and exits the female’s reproductive tract through her pseudo-penis rather than directly through the vagina, which is blocked by the false scrotum and testes.

I’m fairly certain hyena moms give birth to twins most if not all of the time, but it is not unusual for a same-sex weaker twin to not survive cub-hood. The cubs we found were abour 3 months old and hanging out at the den for mom to return. They looked playful yet wary, but weren’t really disturbed by our presence. A bird flying over gave them more pause than we ever did.

Yesterday while hanging out at a watering hole with a hippo, some giraffes drinking, and (previously) a leopard wrapping up an antelope meal, we saw a pack of three hyenas (likely a mom and two juvenile but hunting cubs) cautiously approach the watering hole.

Spotted hyena juvenile with bone

The mom (shown at the top of this post) was very pregnant! The cubs will stop nursing as soon as she gives birth, but otherwise might nurse until they are 18 months old. This young hyena was very attached to his antelope bone!

Lastly, this morning on our final game drive at Ivory Wilderness our guide spotted a drag track (recent kill being dragged across our dirt road) most likely from a leopard. He followed tracks into the bush, then returned and indicated that he also found hyena tracks. Within a minute of this comment one of our group spotted a hyena coming through the bush towards us. Our guide jumped in the driver seat as we tracked the hyena, who then dropped into a drainage ravine. We backed up the vehicle and could make him out: he was eating an impala. Our guide’s conclusion was that the hyena chased a leopard off the kill and took their breakfast away.