2004 June 2005 November 2005 December 2005 December 2006 February 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007
The Brown Hyena project was founded in 1997 as the Namib Desert Brown Hyena Project, and in September 2002 was registered as an "Incorporated Association not for Gain" as the Brown Hyena Research Project.
The objectives of the Association are the research of the Brown Hyena in its natural habitat to ensure the long-term conservation and survival of free-ranging Brown Hyenas and their ecosystem and to create solutions for the conservation of Brown Hyenas and their habitats and all objects ancillary thereto.
This includes, but is not limited to the following:
The Brown Hyena’s current conservation status in Namibia is “insufficiently known (vulnerable or endangered)”. This category reflects the shortage of data. The most recent IUCN classification (2000) describes the status as “Lower Risk/Near Threatened”. Namibian authorities consider the species to be extremely vulnerable in Namibia. It is currently listed as a protected species in the Nature Conservation Ordinance No. 4 of 1975, but will be given the highest order of protection in future.
The main collaboration partners are the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources in Namibia.. The project addresses conservation issues with the help of ecological and behavioural research on Brown Hyenas and their main prey species, the Cape Fur Seal.
Photo: Ingrid Wiesel
The Brown Hyena Research project is based in Luderitz - a port in the South West of Namibia. The original study sites are located in the area between Luderitz and Elizabeth Bay, but more recently study sites have been added to the North of Luderitz at Saddle Hill, Sylvia Hill, and Meob bay, and at Van Reenan Bay and Bakers Bay to the south of Luderitz.
The majority of the study area is located in the area known as the Sperrgebiet - a forbidden zone which was proclaimed after diamonds were first found here in 1908. Since then diamond mining has gone on in this area. Because the area is restricted then most of it is undisturbed by man, making it a beautiful wilderness. The security means that the projects field trips all have to be organised well in advance and clearance sought for any visiting vets or helpers. There are plans to turn the area into a national park once the diamond mining is completed. The vast scale of the wilderness can be seen in the following photo where the project landrover looks tiny in the landscape.
The project is concerned with long term monitoring of the Brown Hyena population and studying their feeding ecology, and to this end work closely with the Seal section of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources in Luderitz as Brown Hyenas regularly prey on Cape Fur Seals. The work at the study site at Van Reenan Bay focuses on monitoring the hunting behaviour of the Brown Hyena, allowing the feeding ecology data obtained from the original study sites to be combined with behavioural information. Having a number of study sites means that Brown Hyena densities and behaviour can be monitored in a number of different environments. Inland sites are likely to differ as there are no seals for the brown hyena to prey upon. Similarly the seals are not as abundant in the area north of Luderitz, and this combined with the fact that the environment is less suitable for Brown Hyenas could result in lower population densities.
Monitoring movement of Brown Hyenas to identify home ranges is done by fitting a number of individuals with radio collars, then tracking the signal to locate the animal. Initially the tracking was done from vehicles, but the extremely limited road network combined with a ban on off-road driving in the area means that it is difficult to get accurate locations unless the animal is close to a road. To improve on the situation a number of aerial monitoring flights have been carried out as this allows the Brown Hyena to be located even when they are nowhere near areas that are vehicle accessible. Aerial tracking flights now take place approximately every three weeks. A number of Brown Hyena have been fitted with GPS collars in collaboration with Duke University. These have a shorter battery life, but offer a significant advantage over tracking via traditional radio collars as they record the GPS location of the hyena at set intervals, which means they will allow the movements of the Hyenas at night to be recorded. After approximately six months, the GPS collars will be recovered to allow the data to be retrieved and analysed.
Four Brown Hyena clans are monitored by the Brown Hyena Research project. These are...
The Agate beach/Anigab clan: This clan resides in an area that stretches from the port of Luderitz up to the north of the Anigab Pan. No mainland seal colonies occur in this area but dead seals washed up on the shore are available as a food source. One male and one female in this clan are fitted with collars.
Peninsula clan: The area occupied by this clan comprises the Luderitz town lands and the Luderitz peninsula. No mainland seal colonies exist in the area but there are a good number of herbivores, washed up dead seals, carrion and refuse from the towns rubbish dump are available food sources. Two females in the clan are fitted with collars.
Wolf Bay clan: The area stretches from Grosse Bucht Bay just south of Luderitz to just north of Elizabeth Bay. There are two mainland seal colonies in the area. One female and two males in the clan are fitted with collars.
Elizabeth Bay clan: The area occupied by this clan stretches from Atlas Bay to south of Elizabeth Bay, and it is believed the area may overlap with the Wolf Bay clan territory. One mainland seal colony exists in this area. One female Brown Hyena in the clan is fitted with a collar, and a second hyena is planned to be fitted with a collar in 2004.
In early 2004 Predator Conservation Trust in the UK agreed to fund the purchase of three radio collars to replace two life expired collars, and to allow an additional Brown Hyena to be collared. Ingrid Wiesel and her team attempted to fit two of these to Brown Hyenas at the Wolf Bay colony, but when they attempted to trap a brown hyena to fit the collar they encountered unexpected difficulties. The hyena in this area refused to be tempted by the bait while Ingrid's vehicle was nearby, but were happy to eat the bait as soon as the vehicle left. After two weeks of trying, Ingrid abandoned the attempt temporarily It appears that the hyenas are become very wary of vehicles and run away when they spot a vehicle. The reasons for this are unknown but Ingrid intends to learn from this experience and try other techniques to capture and collar hyenas from this clan.
In October 2004, Predator Conservation Trust in the UK funded the purchase of a digital SLR camera for the Brown Hyena project. Identification photos are taken of the various Brown Hyenas spotted, but with a normal camera taking lots of photos to get good clear photos for identification purposes proves expensive as films have to be purchased and developed before being scanned and placed on the computer. Using a digital camera avoids this expense and produces better quality images than those produced by their current scanner. The brown hyenas all have unique stripe patterns on their forelegs so these are used to identify an individual animal. Ear notches can also be used but these do change over time (for example in an animal has a fight it might get a new notch in its ear as a result). Ingrid is in discussions with a collaboration partner at the University of Florida to develop a bar code system to allow quick identification of animals from the photos.
In June, Ingrid visited Agate beach just North of Luderitz to fit the collars funded by the Predator Conservation Trust to some of the Brown Hyenas in that area. One hyena arrived at the bait but was already wearing a collar, yet Ingrid was unable to detect a signal from it so concluded it was either a faulty radio collar or was an old visual collar (a standard collar with a reference number on it), so decided to dart the hyena. Dr Flip Stander was assisting and fired the dart at which point the hyena ran off. Despite following and searching for some time, the hyena could not be located in the dark. A further search the following morning failed to find either the dart or the hyena, so it is unclear whether the hyena was hit and simply hid too well or whether the dart missed. The following night, another darting expedition failed with the two hyenas observed around the Luderitz sewage farm simply remaining safely out of range of the dart gun.
In June, Ingrid had success in her efforts to get a warning sign erected to warn drivers of the presence of Brown Hyenas. This came following the death of a number of Brown Hyena on the main road out of Luderitz. A warning sign was erected on the main tar road that leads towards the airport, Aus (and the rest of Namibia), near the deserted mining town of Kolmanskop. This sign has subsequently appeared in the Air Namibia in-flight magazine, Flamingo.
In September, Ingrid again visited Agate beach on a darting expedition, this time with Dr Mark Jago - a vet from Otjiwarongo who has lots of experience of wild carnivores from working with the Africat Foundation. Bait was put out and quickly attracted an adult brown hyena which was clearly unhappy with the presence of the nearby vehicle and it decided not to come too close. Luckily later that same night, two younger brown hyenas came to the bait and one of these was quickly darted with its partner following later on that same night. Both the hyenas were fitted with the PCT radio collars before being allowed to recover from the anaesthetic and wander off. Both the collared hyenas were females - possibly half-sisters, and these are believed to be the two which had been spotted on Ingrid's failed trip in June around the sewage farm. The darting trip with Mark Jago was filmed by the BBC for their TV series Animal Park: Wild in Africa which also included the work of Africat, Afrileo and Cheetah Conservation Fund. Hopefully the series which was recently shown on BBC TV will be repeated again soon so people can look out for the Brown Hyenas.
Brown hyenas are the top predator along the southern coastal Namib Desert.
They regularly prey on Cape fur seal pups, which they find at several mainland
breeding colonies. The Brown Hyena Research Project has been studying the
foraging behaviour of brown hyenas at mainland seal colonies since 1997. The
main method was the investigation of dead seal pups to gain data about hunting
success and prey choice. Direct behavioural observations of foraging brown
hyenas started in 2002. The seal colony at Van Reenen Bay was observed during
the seal pupping season (November to January each year) to record the behaviour
and hunting success of brown hyenas. Observations were restricted to daylight
hours and no observations have been carried out at night so far.
Seals and brown hyenas behave different at night and the daytime observations
might therefore not apply for night-time foraging behaviour and the change in
the behaviour of the seals at night might have an influence on brown hyena
hunting success. Furthermore, brown hyenas are nocturnal animals and only a few
individuals can be observed during the day with decreasing frequency during the
progressing seal pupping season, as the high temperatures in summer prevent
brown hyenas from foraging during the day.
Some of the known and expected behavioural differenced between night-time and
daytime are:
Brown hyena:
Seals:
Photo: B Kolar
To enable the night time observations to be carried out, the Predator
Conservation Trust have just made a grant of £1200 towards the purchase of a DVD
camcorder to be used with existing equipment. The camcorder will allow the
images captured using a highly light sensitive lens to be observed and recorded
( a video recorder or television is impractical as the observation hut has no
electricity). The camcorder can also be used to record daytime observations for
later viewing and comparison against the night time images.
The next study in Van Reenen Bay is planned for February 2006. The Brown Hyena
Research project has a British student volunteer from the University of East
Anglia, working on the behavioural study which will include the night time
observations with the new camcorder
Photo: Ingrid
Wiesel
The BBC once again spent time with Ingrid and her team at the Brown Hyena Research Project, filing for their "Vets in Africa" series. For the darting trip, there were two trained vets - Mark Jago, and Emma Rambert, along with Mark Rambert, an experienced game capture specialist. The team split into two separate teams to maximise the chances of finding and darting a hyena, and a brown hyena was successfully darted and fitted with a radio collar in the Gabusib area, around 80 kilometres from the coast.
The Brown Hyena project currently has radio collars fitted to five Brown Hyena (three of these collars were funded by the Predator Conservation Trust), and three with GPS collars but plans to fit another seven radio collars and two GPS collars this year. The Brown Hyena Project also has plans for two GPS collars to be fitted on spotted hyenas. One radio collared male brown hyena was hit and killed on the tar road near Luderitz and a male GPS collared brown hyena died of old age last year.
Darting trips are organised as follows: A Namibian registered vet is booked to supervise the darting procedure. The darting team travel with three vehicles, two enclosed vehicles for darting and the transport of valuable equipment and one open vehicle for transporting bait and recovery cages. The darting team usually consists of six people, and the darting trips typically last for three nights. Darting success in three nights is low, and the team usually capture one brown hyena per darting trip.
The Brown Hyena Project has already managed to engage a veterinarian for a period of one month in March, which will reduce frequent travelling expenses for a veterinarian (vets are usually flown in from Walvis Bay or Windhoek as required for darting trips due to the absence of a local veterinarian). However, the team would like to reduce the costs even further by only using two vehicles. There is not enough room to transport equipment, recovery cages and bait in the two enclosed vehicles and the plan therefore is to purchase a roof rack for the Toyota Double Cab to transport bait and cages.
Photo: Ingrid
Wiesel
The African Outback Roof Rack for a Toyota Hilux including reinforcement of the vehicle roof and fitting will cost N$ 5000. The total darting expenses for March are estimated to be N$ 20 000 provided that only two vehicles are used. Funding has already been arranged for some of the veterinary expenses. The Predator Conservation Trust are therefore happy to provide a grant of £1000 (around N$14000) fund the required work on the vehicle Brown Hyena and the darting trip expenses not already funded.
Photo: Ingrid
Wiesel
The Brown Hyena Project has moved its environmental information centre from the Luderitz waterfront to a new location in the Kolmanskop ghost town just outside Luderitz. The new location gives a lot more space for displays and receives a lot more visitors as Kolmanskop is a tourist attraction. Since moving to the new location, a number of tourists have seen a brown hyena walking around and so the information centre has received more interest than expected.
Photo: Ingrid Wiesel
A camera trap installed in the Kolmaskop ghost town has succeeded in photographing the Brown Hyena that is sighted by tourists. Unfortunately the hyena seems fascinated by the camera trap and instead of walking past and being photographed has chosen to investigate it closely - resulting in extreme close up photos such as the one below.
Photo:
Brown Hyena research project
One of the benefits of the new GPS collars being used in the project is that they allow data to be downloaded remotely rather than the research team having to wait till the collar's battery is nearly expired and then retrieving the collar to download the data. In some cases the remote download is fairly easy - simply get close enough in the vehicle and then start downloading. Unfortunately the inland Hyenas are found in areas where there are no roads and off-road driving is prohibited. To overcome this issue it was decided to download the data from a low-flying aircraft, The problem with this is that if the Hyena is stationary the aircraft has to keep circling to stay within range while the data is downloaded - recently this took over 35 minutes of circling while Ingrid concentrated on the data retrieval. As you can imagine this isn't easy in a small low flying aircraft without starting to feel airsick. Luckily Ingrid managed to download 1000 data points without succumbing to airsickness, but her attempts to find a volunteer for future download flights are finding a distinct shortage of willing volunteers !
This photo shows Ingrid checking the equipment prior to taking off on a flight to download GPS data from a Brown Hyena fitted with a GPS collar.
Photo: Brown Hyena research project
The following photo shows the aircraft's flight path while the data was being downloaded - all the circling was required to avoid going outside the range of the collar's transmitter and losing the signal (and having to start the download again).
Photo: Brown Hyena research project
The trustees have approved a grant to the Brown Hyena Project to contribute to the costs of a darting trip and access to research reports and other scientific literature. Darting and collaring of hyenas is done on a regular basis - there are currently five collars that still have to be fitted and a veterinarian has to supervise the handling of the animals. A proportion of the funds granted will go to cover these expenses. The remaining funds will be used to purchase scientific literature and books. The Brown Hyena Project has no access to libraries and to become a member to use on-line library services is too costly for the project. Since they are using highly sophisticated technologies such as GPS telemetry and camera trapping, it is essential that they keep up to date with improved and new ecological methods and statistical analysis methods.
Following Ingrid Wiesel's talk to FFI in Chester in September, FFI made a donation of £500 to PCT for Ingrid's project. The latest grant from the Predator Conservation Trust consists of this £500 plus a further £500 from PCT funds, giving a total grant of £1000. Additionally when Ingrid visited the UK, PCT were able to donate two reference books which had been donated to PCT and which are unavailable in Namibia.
The Brown Hyena Research Project newsletters are included here in pdf format.
March 2007 , June 2007 , September 2007 , December 2007
March 2006 , June 2006 , September 2006 , December 2006
March 2005 , June 2005 , September 2005 , December 2005
March 2004 , June 2004 , September 2004 , December 2004
March 2003 , June 2003 , September 2003 , December 2003/January 2004
Ingrid Wiesel's dissertation on Brown Hyenas which was written as part of her doctorate is also available to download here.
Predatory and foraging behaviour of Brown Hyenas at cape fur seal colonies
If you wish to know more about the work of the Brown Hyena Research Project, click here to visit the Brown Hyena Project website
Photo: Ingrid Wiesel
© Predator Conservation Trust.
