“Panja”, the new Hyena cub

Winter has finally arrived at camp, the nights are chilly and the mornings are freezing cold. Out come the hand gloves, beanies, shawls and the winter coats for our morning drives. Our students have begun their assessment drives this week (the practical component of the Level 1 exam) and go out early enough in the morning to see how warm air is rising up from the Termite mound vents. On one of the assessments drives we saw a yellow billed hornbill enjoying the warm termite air too.

One assessment drive, we decided to go past the newly found Hyena den site, expecting to see some of the adult Hyena’s laying around warming themselves up in the morning sun. We arrived at the den and slowly and carefully parked ourselves right next to some bushes close to the den. When we arrived we saw two cubs of 2 months old getting a drink from their mum. They were clearly enjoying the milk as they made very satisfied sounds.

Another adult hyena arrived from another side of the den and she had a tiny two week cub in her mouth. She put it carefully down on its feet but the cub could barely walk and was struggling to follow mum. We were very exited to see this new addition! We were the first ones to see this new hyena cub! After sending the pictures to the reserves science officer, she gave us the honour of naming this cub. At the den, Eva Morgan did her assessment talk on hyena life but we were also talked about what name to give this tiny cub… We named the hyena cub “Panja” meaning “rat” in Swahili and hope that it will one day grow up to be part of a successful clan. After a couple of minutes we decided to drive off as we did not wanted to disturb them too much. What a great start of the assessment and the day!

“Panja”, the new Hyena cub