Hyena cubs and more hyena cubs, this is how everything unfolded last night, and again this morning. The cubs attempted to out-whoop each other, which the adults responded to and turned the ravine into a resounding amphitheatre – amazing! Then the mother of two of the cubs showed them how to put those scent glands to use. The den smelled like the hyenas had eaten well and I found a hair ball the size of a Persian rug where I normally park.
I like to give them plenty of space, which normally allows the adults to make use of the entire area and I pick up more activity. Last night the one adult almost climbed underneath the vehicle they were lying so close. This is great to see, because we don’t want to be putting these animals under stress each time we pull up to the den.
All animals, even within the same species, respond to us in different ways, we don’t always judge the situation correctly, but this is the nature of what we do. The scouts that have been helping track down the black rhinos are occupied with other important anti-poaching tasks, so I wait patiently for them to have some time to do some more tracking.
I took an easy drive to Nduna this afternoon, there were lots of elephant tracks on the road until finally I came across a lone elephant bull. There is no charge or close get away story to be told, on the contrary, he was quite a peaceful young chap. What I was on my way to check out anyhow, was whether I’d find the earless rhino in recovery. I found him hobbling close to the hills looking worse than ever. The limp is bad and he smells like rotting flesh, I’m really worried about him. Oh, I made a mistake when sexing this rhino, it is actually a bull. Only with endangered species, will the reserve sometimes intervene, but there’s a process of acquiring permission from parks (this can be quick with an injury situation). We will check him out tomorrow to decide whether this will be necessary… but heaven forbid we get too close.
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