Translocation and ecology of the brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea) in the Lowveld bushveld, Limpopo, South Africa

1. What they did

Brown hyaenas are often killed by farmers who blame them for livestock deaths. To test translocation as an alternative, five brown hyaenas trapped on two Limpopo farms (two adult males, one adult female and two young females) were moved to the Greater Pidwa and Makalali nature reserve, held together in a boma for 12 months and fed an impala carcass every fifth day, then fitted with GPS collars and given a soft release. The collars took hourly positions every night for about a year.

The author tracked how the hyaenas settled, measured their home ranges and nightly movements, and found and filmed their dens. She visited GPS positions within 36 hours, and random points for comparison, to record habitat, vegetation cover, road use and signs of hyaena presence. She also counted ungulates on 69 driven transects to estimate food available in each habitat, mapped lions and spotted hyaenas with trail cameras and sightings, and recorded food remains at feeding sites and dens.

2. What they found

• Survival and settling: one collar failed after 22 days, so four hyaenas were followed. All four survived, stayed inside the reserve and formed two pairs: Smoothy and Jaggedy in the fenced section without lions and spotted hyaenas, and No. 5 and Spot in the open system with them. The hyaenas crossed internal fences several times.
• Breeding: Jaggedy gave birth in late February 2012. Three cubs were photographed at about four weeks old, and she moved them, one at a time in her mouth, through five dens, all in old termite mounds. Both she and the male Smoothy brought food to the den.
• Home ranges (90% kernel): 15.0 to 50.4 km² (mean 32.5 km²), with core areas of 2.0 to 12.8 km². The pair among lions and spotted hyaenas used 45.3 and 50.4 km²; the pair without them used 19.1 and 15.0 km². These are much smaller than in the Kalahari or Namib desert.
• Nightly movement: 0.06 to 33.4 km (mean 10.2 km) at 0.83 km per hour. Only the oldest male, No. 5, travelled significantly further in the first weeks after release; he walked the whole boundary fence in his first two weeks.
• Habitat and roads: the pair without lions and spotted hyaenas used riverine and drainage-line habitats and eroded ground more than expected, used roads heavily and preferred open cover. The other pair showed no habitat preference and used roads less. Habitat use did not follow ungulate biomass, which was higher in every habitat in the fenced section.
• Signs: signs of brown hyaenas were found at 38.4% of GPS positions visited (n = 219) and 1.4% of random points (n = 365). Tracks were the most common sign; scat, anal pasting, resting sites and feeding sites were also found.
• Diet: mammals made up 90.3% of food items recorded, warthog most often, with nyala, wildebeest, giraffe, impala, African civet (the first record in brown hyaena diet), porcupine, python, monitor lizard and guineafowl. In the boma, one young female always cached an impala leg before feeding.
• Costs: about US$8,168 for the translocation and US$15,870 for monitoring, not counting staff time.

3. What they concluded

• The translocation was a success by the usual measures: the hyaenas survived, settled where they were released, did not resume conflict, and bred.
• Translocation with a soft release can be a tool for removing brown hyaenas from conflict with farmers.
• Lowveld bushveld is suitable habitat, and brown hyaenas can live alongside lions and spotted hyaenas, though they appear to keep to areas where these carnivores are less concentrated.
• Brown hyaena range size may be linked to rainfall and to how food is spread out. The author estimates the reserve could support two more social groups.
• Four animals are a small sample, and fences may have shaped their movements.

4. How tracking was or was not used

Tracks and signs identification was used to confirm where the hyaenas had been and what they had done. At GPS positions and random points, the team searched for tracks, scat, anal pasting, dens, resting places and feeding remains. Tracks and scat at a burrow entrance marked a suspected den, and food remains at dens and feeding sites were identified to species. No trailing was done: the hyaenas were found with VHF radio signals, and the author writes that following them at night would be impossible in the thick bushveld.

5. Tracker or observer certification

Not reported. The dissertation does not say who identified the tracks and signs (the author, a colleague and volunteers took part in fieldwork). This matters for the sign results in Figure 3.2 and the diet records.

6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

• GPS collars with UHF download, VHF and mobile-phone (GSM) network data transfer, and remote drop-off.
• Microchips and anaesthetic darting.
• Trail cameras at dens and carcasses.
• A white-disk method to measure vegetation cover at hyaena eye level, and visibility surveys to set transect widths for counting ungulates.
• A full cost breakdown of the translocation.

7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

• Brown hyaenas are often blamed and killed for livestock deaths they did not cause; translocation offers an alternative to killing them.
• The author gives a species-specific method for future translocations: wild-caught animals, a holding boma with set feeding, darting, GPS collars and a soft release.
• Fenced private wildlife land, about 16.8% of South Africa, could serve as release sites.
• She recommends longer-term monitoring and studies of how fences affect brown hyaenas.