SANParks.org Forums

Hi Bradley and Welcome!

Wild Dogs are very nomadic and only stay in an area when denning (raising pups). Wild Dogs, as far as I know do not use the same den every year nor do they live in one permanently. We would have to be very lucky if they had a den close to a road, then there is an excellent chance of seeing them. Your question is therefore a very good one, so if anyone knows of current denning sights for Wild Dogs that would be helpful but Wild Dogs tend to move on once the pups are old enough and sometimes change dens often while denning to protect the pups.

Hyena are much more settled in their territories and occupy the same dens for years, they often use the culverts beneath the roads as dens so are often seen. One den that we OFTEN see them at is on the main tar road between Satara and Olifants, closer to Olifants and in the vicinity of the S89 junction.

It would be interesting to build up a database of all Hyena dens along roads in the park and to keep current info on where any Wild Dog denning activity is, this is most often far from tourist roads so much luck is needed to find them and they are not permanent so active dens are what we should be looking for.

I believe that there is a hyaena den at the intersection of the Paul Kruger Road and the Doispane. This den has been going for donkeys years.

This den did not seem to be occupied when I was there in May. However, there is a current den in a culvert on the S90 south of Balule but a couple of Ks north of the S89. I have some pix that I'll post eventually. There were several adults and pups.

There is also a den with about 6 adults and several pups on the H11 (lefthand side heading towards Kruger gate) before you get to the Lake Panic turnoff. It is at a no entry road, quite easy to spot. Again, will post pix eventually

Here are some locations of dens that were 'active' last May:

Near Balule
S24 04.039 E31 44.118

North of Kumana Dam on the H1-3
S24 36.105 E31 47.404

North of Afsaal (20km) next to tar road
S25 10.548 E31 33.808

Hi Faunavista and welcome.
There are, I think, 3 dens between Satara and Olifants on the tar road. We saw 2 of them in April -- both with very small babies. One is near Ngotso North and the otheri s near the Olifants turn off.

Have fun

There is a fairly active den on the H5 just east of the S108. About 3km. There is a culvert and there were hyena there in may, and about 1km closer to the H4-2 is another culvert they use as aden.
Goodluck in finding them

Another possibility is the one 1 km west of Msemani Dam on the H7 from Satara to Orpen.

Hi Faunavista,
There is also a very active den at the junction of the H11 and S1.
There were at least 3 litters of cubs there in Feb.

If you would like to see some of our pics of the Hyenas, you can go and have a look Here

There's a large den with 2 lots of pups at the crossroads of the H1-4, S89 and S39. They seem to be using a drainage tunnel under the road.

There's also a couple of dens up near Shingwedzi, if you are going that far up. One to the south on the H1-6, but I'm not sure of it's exact position, and one to the north just past the little 2K loop over the Nkulumbeni river. The guides in Shingwedzi will know exactly where.

We cross two hyena dens during our week trip.

First one was between Letaba and Olifants on the S93. Mom with two older pups and three little ones which one had a key interest in our car.

The second den we came across was on our way away from Olifants at S39 turn off to Roodewal. They were on the tar road to our left with mommy, bunch of other aldults and 4 - 5 small pups (they were still black) and we sat there for about half an hour to watch them play and bite mommy ears. Very cute!!!

Then of course we saw hyenas around Skukuza a lot...

Hi BB.
As you take the turn-off on the Doispane road from Skukuza ...about 1km-2km are an active den currently. The youngest pup just about start to get spots, and are very active. There are about 12 hyenas there in total...just returned yesterday from Skukuza. They are all over the road and are quite nice to watch!!!

On a recent trip to BnD I was informed that there are no brown Hyena's in the KNP (but there are apparently in KTP). Striped hyenas are found in north and east Africa and what was called Arabia.



Spotted hyenas are the largest of three hyena species. Although hyenas appear similar to dogs, they are actually more closely related to cats, and live in groups called clans.

There are plenty of spotted hyena dotted around the park, and apparently they only scavenge between 30 and 40 % of their food the other 60 - 70% is hunted. The striped and brown hyena are thought to scavenge a significantly larger portion, and hunt less.

Another bit of useless information is that they also make extremely good mothers, so much so that is a mother dies (for whatever reason) the aunts in the den take over nursing the cubs. Spotted hyenas usually have 2 cubs at a time and they are raised for about 10 months. A same sexed litter will result in vicious fighting between the cubs (sublicide), often resulting in death (sometimes as much as 25%). Spotted hyena milk is very rich, having the highest protein content (14.9%) of any land carnivore, and the fat content (14.1%) is second only to the polar bear, so unlike lions and wild dogs, they can leave their cubs for about a week without feeding them. Young depend entirely on milk for about 8 months and are not weaned until 12 to 16 months old. Maturation is at three years, females later than males. Female offspring remain in their natal clan while males leave at around two years.

Hyenas are able to consume and digest parts of prey that would remain untouched by other animals. They completely digest organic matter such as bones, while indigestible items such as hooves, horns, ligaments and hair are regurgitated in pellets.

As you can see these are my favorite animals, and it is sad that they patrol the Satara (and other camp) boundary fence, as in my mind this means people have been feeding them and as a result they have probably lost their fear of man. The knock on effect of this is that they will probably have to be destroyed in future when they become a real menace to people.

STOP FEEDING THE WILD ANIMALS PEOPLE, YOU ARE SIGNING THEIR DEATH WARRANTS

Hi forumites,
Hyena are also my favourite animals and love to photograph them,if you look at the Satara cam highlites you will always get a pic of the hyena that roam the fence,i agree that visitors to the park feed these animals as on my visit in December i saw a person throw the remnants of a hamburger over the fence.

On the Phabeni road after all the rains we came across a young pup,black in colour that was forced out of the culvert due to all the rain,this pup had an older sister which was eating on a rotten carcass,on enquiring from the SANPARKS ranger who was viewing this she said that the mother had been killed about a week ago and that the young hyena was eating one of her brothers/sisters.
The next day we visited the site again and the same ranger informed us that the pup had dissapeared but the young one had joined up with another clan,when searching we found the young hyena playing with the other pups.

A
wonderful trip as we saw plenty hyena and wild dog.

Will post pics once i have learnt how to do this.

Agree with you AjayB.



Hi Gemsbok, we are nature lovers indeed. Making a few noises and feeding animals are 2 different issues though.

Maybe I should rephrase. Of course you are interfering when you mimic animal or bird call.There are mimics all around in nature though and all sorts of trickery going on out there day and night wether thats a passive sort like camouflage mimickry or active like sounds.If you mimic a kwe-voel alarm call, game in the area wont become less alert to possible danger any time they hear that call in the future.Ditto with the hyena and a mimicked call.I could be wrong but I would battle to believe that he gets stressed when he finds his response to a noise is unsucessful .He is a scavenger and a chancer and always on the lookout for anything thats going. In his case, I think personally nothing is going to change that. EXCEPT reward/guaranteed food associations.So very very little harm done IMHO---