About Bebe

Several weeks ago, I was told by the hyena man that Bebe is an orphan. Apparently when she was very small and had just been introduced to the hyena feeding place, her mother, Jambo, became sick and died. So I’ve been following Bebe’s behaviour and as far as I can tell, it’s true; Bebe has no mother. I’ve seen her try to suckle once from Funyamure, who was extremely reluctant to oblige and sat on her teats, grumbling (Funyamure grumbles a lot). And I’ve seen her being licked by another juvenile, but other than that, Bebe doesn’t associate with any particular female and I often find her at a distance from the other hyenas.

This is interesting in terms of hyena ecology, because if Bebe was orphaned in a place like Serengeti or Masaai Mara, she would almost certainly have died or been killed. Hyenas in such places have to compete for food at kills and little ones like Bebe rely on their mothers’ protection so that they can get access to food. Where they are unsuccessful at kills they can still suckle and they do so up until they’re about 18 months old. Even if an orphaned hyena was able to survive without their mothers’ help getting food and without suckling, they would still be very vulnerable to attacks by other hyenas so their chances in the wild are very slim.

Yet Bebe is doing extremely well. I hadn’t seen her for several nights after Arafa and the camel feast, and I was worried that she might have fallen ill with whatever it was that killed the camel. Then I spent four days in Dire Dawa, without being able to find out if she was ok, so I was like a worried parent and pretty relieved to see her last night when I went back to see the feeding. She’s put on a lot of weight since last week and her body is noticeably bigger, though her head and nose are still small and still extremely cute.

She’s very clever and has developed strategies that allow her access to food and protection from other hyenas. During the feeding, she’ll stand behind the hyena man, while the other hyenas stand in front of him. And the hyena man knows she’s there so every now and then he turns and calls her name so that she can come close and take some meat. She also stands closer to the tourists than other hyenas so that when food is thrown their way, to bring the hyenas closer for photos, Bebe gets first access. And she also uses proximity to people as a means of protection. If she’s being persecuted by bigger hyenas, she’ll go and lie down close to the house or close to people watching so that she’s left alone by the other hyenas who are not brave enough to come as close. Although Tukwondilli, in one of his mad moments, might do so and I’ve had him come very close to me at the shrine in order to get away from Dibbey in one of her aggressive moods.

Bebe is so trusting that if she’s lying down near me and I make a sudden movement, the other hyenas further away will scatter, but Bebe just lifts her little head to see what’s going on. In fact she lets me come as close as half a metre so long as I talk and reassure her. This just wouldn’t be possible with the other hyenas who are really quite skittish when there’s no food to be had. So Bebe’s survival strategy as an orphan is to associate with humans, which in other parts of Africa would be detrimental, but around here works to her advantage.