Up to date, the Brown Hyena Research Project has collared over 20 brown hyenas with VHF or GPS telemetry collars, as well as one spotted hyena. Below is the history of some of our study animals. All of these animals feature in our newsletters, too.
Emma (LHb 10)
Emma was a brown hyena of the Peninsula Clan. She was fitted with a VHF collar for the first time in 2000. She raised several litters of cubs together with another breeding female of the same clan, called Gypsy II. Emma died of natural causes on 27 January 2007. She was approximately 14 to 16 years old by then.
Caspar (GHb1m)
Caspar was fitted with a GPS telemetry collar in 2006 while we were filming the BBC documentary “Vet Safaris”. He was approximately 12 years old and weighted 41 kg. His core activity area is the Klinghardt Mountain range in the centre of the Sperrgebiet National Park. He is still fitted with the GPS collar and we retrieve a set of 1000 data points every six weeks.
Maya (GHb2f)
Maya is and was our latest study animal addition. We fitted her with a GPS telemetry collar in August 2008. Four days later, her two large cubs had managed to rip the collar off her neck, causing quite some damage on the belting. Maya lives in the same study area than Caspar and both of them were together at the den on one occasion while her collar was still fitted. Maya is approximately 10 years old and in an excellent condition.
Rodin (DHb1m)
Rodin is a male brown hyena of the coastal Dreimasterbay clan and he is always good for surprises. He was fitted with a GPS telemetry collar in 2007, when he was approximately 8 years old. He weighted 35 kg at the time. We also try to do a data download about every six weeks – but he is often difficult to find. His home range occasionally overlaps with Caspar’s home range in the Klinghardt Mountains, but they have not met so far.
Ray (VRBHb3m)
Ray was one of the most ‘boring’ study animals, but definitely my favourite. Ray was fitted with a GPS telemetry collar in 2006. His main foraging area was the Van Reenen Bay seal colony and he did not move far away from that site. Tracking him was easy, as his preferred resting sites were not more than 5 km away from the seals. Ray started to lose condition in December 2007 and unfortunately died of natural causes in June 2008.
Floggy (VRBHb2m)
Floggy was fitted with a GPS telemetry collar at the Van Reenen Bay seal colony at the end of February 2006. He was an old male in a moderate condition. One month later, he died of natural causes while on his way to the Atlas Bay seal colony approximately 80 km further north.
Tosca (LHb30f)
Tosca was fitted with a GPS telemetry collar in July 2006. She had a litter of 3 months old cubs at that time and therefore the programming schedule of the collar was intense and a data download was necessary every second week. The collar was dropped off in December 2007 and we retrieved more than 37 000 data sets, which gave us detailed insight into her denning behaviour. Tosca is the new and young breeding female of the Peninsula clan.
Minerva (LHb22f)
Minerva is the breeding female of the Agate Beach clan. She was first fitted with a VHF telemetry collar in 2003 and we replaced this collar with a GPS telemetry collar in 2007. She had cubs at that time, but was in an excellent condition. We dropped her collar off at the beginning of 2008, but she did not want to part with it easily. Eventually her collar dropped off in the surf zone just north of Agate Beach and we had to send it to Europe for data retrieval.
Tony (LHb31f)
Tony’s story is quite amazing. She was foraging during daylight at a fish factory in Luderitz in 2007 and could not find her way out. We rescued her and fitted her with a VHF telemetry collar. Since then we are following her movements through aerial telemetry. Although she was already approximately 14 years old, when we rescued her, she is still with us and usually find her in the area around the Wolf Bay seal colony.
Radford
Radford is Lüderitz’s special night-time visitor and also likes to show himself to tourists at Kolmanskop Ghost Town on a regular basis. However, most of the time he forages in the town of Lüderitz, keeping many locals awake, as all dogs bark frantically when he roams the streets.
Alfie (KHb2m)
Alfie was fitted with a GPS telemetry collar near the fountain at Kaukausib in 2005. It took as two months to find him, as his activity core area was 50 km south of the fountain. We dropped his collar off four months after deployment and his data showed us the location of the active den site of his clan.
Oona (GCc1f)
Oona is our first spotted hyena. We fitted her with a GPS telemetry collar at the Namib wild horse water trough near Aus in 2007. Since then, we are doing a data download every six weeks. Her core activity area is the Koichab river bed just south of the Namib Desert dune fields.