Ranger Diary

The brown hyena

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The Pilanesberg is home to the Brown Hyena. We are very privileged to be able to view this amazing animal on a regular basis, as it is quite rare!

Now the other night my guests and I had just started our afternoon safari and had just turned on to Tau link road, and as we turned the corner we noticed two brown hyena males fighting in the road, this in itself was a fantastic sighting, but I could never have expected to see what came next. Unbelievably one of the hyena had half it's leg bitten off, probably by the other one ( hyenas are fiercely territorial and are renown for their extreme bite force as they have to be able to bite through the toughest of hides and bones). I assume the hyenas were startled by our approach and they both moved off, in all likelihood the dispute had possibly been settled.

But was possibly even more surprising was that injured animal still felt that he had the upper hand and went on to mark his territory.

Ivory Tree Game Lodge