Dibbey

Here’s some video of Dibbey in an aggressive mood. Note the grunt and the raised tail, which is a dead giveaway that she’s about to attack. She bites Bebe, which looks pretty violent and actually draws a reaction from me, but in slow motion, you can see that it’s an open mouth bite and not meant to injure. It’s just Dibbey asserting her dominance and Bebe is apparently (and thankfully) unhurt.
In fact I saw more of a reaction from Bebe one time when she jumped to take a piece of food at the same time that a much bigger hyena was coming down with a piece. The bigger hyena’s snout hit Bebe’s with an audible thunk and Bebe was visibly hurt. She shook her head and went away to sit by herself sniffing and licking her nose and it was some time before she plucked up the courage to rejoin the fray. She’s only small and usually finds a place to one side of the rest of the hyenas where the hyena man can single her out and give her bits of meat without too much competition.

Dumpster Party

The easiest way to find hyenas in Harar is to locate one of these big orange dumpsters, and there are plenty of them. I’m sure orange must be the hyenas’ favourite colour because they really love these dumpsters and are not easily persuaded to leave. The benefit for people is that the hyenas eat most of the really bad smelling garbage such as meat scraps and so forth, so that the garbage in Harar smells more earthy and compost-like compared to the rank smell of the garbage in Australia.
Note the dog in the background. The local dogs get incredibly irate at the hyenas and bark like crazy, so much so that you can tell where the hyenas are in town just by listening to where the dogs are barking. The funny thing is that the hyenas seem unfazed by the attention of the dogs and just wander up to where the dogs are, without flinching. In fact I’ve seen one hyena change course and deliberately go across to where a dog was barking madly at another hyena almost as if to incite it.

Shebo

This is Shebo from the Falana clan whose name means ‘snare’ in Orominya. Shebo had the misfortune to be caught in a snare, probably set to kill hyenas but possibly set for other pest animals. If I had the means I guess I could sedate her and remove the wire but I just have no way of doing this so she’s stuck with it. The wire is gradually getting tighter and you can see it’s cutting right into the flesh of her neck and must make life pretty uncomfortable and painful, although hyenas supposedly have a high tolerance for pain.
Snares are a problem across Africa, especially in countries where the taking of bush meat is on the increase and hyenas, being quite curious animals, are especially prone to getting caught in snares. For a number of reasons, hyenas aren’t usually eaten in Africa so when one is caught in a snare it is usually left to its own devices rather than killed and eaten as would be other kinds of animals. But even if they can break the snare free from its anchor point, they’ll be stuck with the tightening wire until the injury becomes too severe and they die.

Tukwondilli

This is a (probably) male from the Erer clan called ‘Tukwondilli’ and he’s been acting a little strange of late. For two nights running, at the feeding, he’s been tremendously excitable, actually bursting through the line of tourists, doing a little lap of the shrine, and then coming back through the line of people from behind. And I must say, it’s pretty unnerving having a hyped up hyena push past you from behind like that.
Not entirely certain why he’s been so hyped lately, but it could well be his male urges as last night he was doing his best to mate with Koti, but without success.

And as a post script, I found out last night that 'Tukwondilli' means, 'To touch it is a sin' in Oromia language. This is kind of intriguing and I wonder how he got the name.

Falana Hyenas

And here's a capture from video of some of the Falana clan lying around in the morning sun at Cactus Rocks. This is their denning site and is absolutely perfect, with a view across the valley to the farms, plenty of little caves to sleep in, and only minutes from the slaughteryards. I should sell real estate. No names for these ones as yet so they're quite enigmatic... but cute.