Home Range Size

The movement of brown hyenas in the Sperrgebiet has been studied since 1999. Initially only VHF transmitters were used to determine brown hyena home range size and in 2003 the first GPS collars were deployed. At present the home ranges of individuals of at least seven different clans are studied, five along the coast and two in inland areas of the Sperrgebiet. The figure below shows the location of some of these home ranges of 5 brown hyenas from 5 different clans.

The estimation of home range sizes requires the knowledge about the behaviour and ecology of individuals of different clans, taking the habitat structure into consideration, in order to determine the best method to use for obtaining the best fitting home range estimate. This knowledge is also important to make decisions about the use of VHF or GPS collars. Our results show that home ranges of Sperrgebiet brown hyenas have a wide range of between 50 km² and several thousand km². In general home ranges of females seem to be smaller than those of males and territory boundaries seem to be extremely clearly defined.