Hyena in the kitchen

After a long day out with the elephants, working on a talk I am giving in Gaborone next week and the International Elephant Foundation application we sat down to have our supper and play some banangrams (our favourite game).

Whilst digesting our food we caught a glimpse of a spotted Hyena walking into the kitchen. I got up screaming like a banshee to chase it away (so much so that the guides came racing up to see if I was OK), I soon stopped when I realised I did not want to chase him/her (hyaena are notorious hard to sex) further into the kitchen, where Rasta was with the clients starters ready to go. There would have been mayhem as the hyena tucked into rocket and ham salad!!!! Rasta spotted her (she was large so I am going with it being a her) before she had the chance to make the most of the opportunity before her and she emerged from the kitchen and we started shouting at her again and off she went.

Over time the hyena have learnt that where they are humans there is food waste, the camp has tightened up their food waste control and now the hyena may smell food but they simply cannot get to it…… unless they go into the kitchen or steal our food, which is waht happened back in May.

We were sat outside tucking into fish and chips when the camp managers came up for supper and said they had seen a leopard on the path, we all got up to go have a look, leaving our food unattended. We soon realised the errors of our way and I returned to find a hyena tucking into someone’s supper. We were convinced that it was a well practiced pincer maneuver and that the ‘leopard’ was a decoy hyena. We humans like to think we are clever, but we are often outfoxed or in this case out hyaenaed!!!