Our hyena here at Lake Eyasi are very much different to hyena that call protected areas such as National Park their home. In National Parks they have no direct human contact and have become habituated to Safari vehicles, whereas in community areas they somehow need to share the same environment with people. Local communities make their living out of either livestock or agriculture and with human population is exponentially growing, these stretches of settlement expand. This leads to more clans having to live with human disturbance, when they wouldn’t have before. When humans and hyena come in close proximity to one another there is a conflict over resources, habitat and food. A growing human population creating loss of habitat also causes the decrease of other wildlife species including prey species for hyenas. The lack of prey species for predators increases the likelihood of livestock conflict.
In addition to our own surveys, we have also incorporated citizen science surveys around Lake Eyasi. Public flyers have been set up at frequently visited shops and offices asking for assistance in finding den-sites of spotted and striped hyena. This way, we are able to use local knowledge and cover a lot more ground when searching for den sites.
We firstly place camera traps at the den site to determine if it is active. Originally these cameras were placed without protection, but unfortunately hyenas reacted differently to our previous experience. Lesson learnt! We now place them in a steel box for the first night, and then installed in steel boxes with a metal pole which are fixed into the ground using cement. They are placed in optimal positions to monitor individuals of the den and to get right and left sides of individuals for photo ID.
