Written by Tilly Ingall (University of Vermont)
We became well adjusted to our new home in Mababe and as a result the animals certainly became more accustomed to us. We’d frequently wake up in the night to the breaking of branches and rumbles of a small bachelor herd of elephants feeding on the Mopane trees around camp. We have seen some baboon troops near camp, but we luckily have not fallen victim to a raid while out—though I always half-expect to return to camp to find the scene out of Tarzan with elephants and baboons using our pots and pans as instruments.
We had heard hyenas calling the night before, and Hank and I were lucky enough to see one lope past our car as we headed out for an early morning transect. However, it wasn’t until a few nights ago that they graced us with their presence at camp. Playing a new staple of card game -Hearts- Ben, Hank, Harrison, John, and instructor Ben were focused on their hands while I sat in to watch and learn the intricacies of the game when I announced that I thought I heard something moving in the grass behind me. I was presuming it to be nothing and me just being paranoid when Harrison turned around to find a male spotted hyena not five feet from him, just lurking behind our dish rack.
Caught off-guard, we jumped up from our seats and instructor Ben moved to chase the male away. Though the hyena had the temerity to walk up to a six-person card game, it didn’t take much to scare him off—hyenas in general are easily shooed off by a confident stomp and yell. We observed from far behind, shining our lights out into the night as instructor Ben herded the hyena back into the bush, finding another larger male also lurking, the two in no doubt brought in by the tempting smells emanating from the chicken dinner recently enjoyed, as well as the food tent which houses the cookies we treat ourselves to on transects.
We managed to continue the game of cards, not without rehashing the recent event and laughing at the daringness of the hyena, as well as Harrison’s comical exclamation of “Oh, there’s a hyena”, said with a little too much nonchalance. The hyenas continued to call and every once in a while we would indulge them by replying with our own “whoo-oop!” knowing that we would most likely be getting another visit from our new friends. Not long after was the game finished and it deemed best that we retire to our tents after double hyena-proofing the kitchen area.
Only ten minutes or so after returning to our tents we heard them slinking through the grass and the sound of paws on the table and bowls clanking—no different from an opportunistic dog looking for left overs on a kitchen counter. Stacie and I watched huddled in our tent as one hyena came just a couple meters from our window to inspect the fire pit over which the chicken was cooked. We watched as the light of instructor Ben’s torch moved closer and shined on the spots of the hyena, who waited till only necessary before shuffling away through the rest of camp. Ben continued to chase him and yell him out of the camp, joking to Stacie and me on his way back that he would see us again in 20 minutes. Sure enough, the hyena came back and this pattern continued into the night—Ben resigning after the third visit and Kaggie then picking up a shift. Stacie and I tried our hand at Morse code with our torches to signal to Kaggie when the hyena returned, furiously shining them in its direction to expose the intruder.
With the orchestra of “whooping” continuing through the night, occasionally embellished by dish clanking or pawing at the food tent from the percussion section, I didn’t get much sleep. A about 2:00am I woke up in a haze to hear the breaking of plastic and it took me a while to orient myself and realize that the hyena must be gnawing on one of the plastic containers under the table. Before I could alert someone, a sleep deprived Sixteen and Foe (an escort guide) came out from their tents and started berating the animal with insults, “You have no manners” among other less tame ones.
In the morning we swapped stories of our hyena sightings and hearings, Hank sharing that he heard the hyena walk across the floor-mat at the front of his tent. We also performed an assessment of the damage done to the kitchen, but gratefully the only losses to claim were a bit of plastic from the dish container and a bar of soap.
