An Appointment with Mr Yeats

«To every creature that has been judged before it was ever truly known.»

Why the Hyena, the Misunderstood One? People sometimes ask me why the hyena is my favorite animal. The easy answer would be admiration. Yes, I admire her intelligence. I admire her resilience, her complex social life, the incredible strength of her jaws, and her remarkable ability to adapt. I also admire the essential role she plays in Africa's ecosystems. But that's not the real reason. What moves me about the hyena is much harder to explain. She's an animal that has never tried to win humanity's affection. She doesn't have the lion's majesty, the leopard's elegance, or the cheetah's breathtaking beauty. Her appearance is unusual, her gait is awkward to some, and her voice is unlike anything else in the animal kingdom.

For centuries, that alone has been enough for people to assume the worst about her. We built her reputation long before we ever tried to understand her. And yet, when you take the time to truly observe her, an entirely different reality begins to emerge. You discover a devoted mother. A society of astonishing complexity. Unshakable loyalty to her clan. A remarkably intelligent animal. One that is indispensable to the balance of the African savanna. So I can't help but wonder... How many beings, human or otherwise, have been judged the very same way? How many still carry a reputation that was never truly theirs? The hyena has taught me that there can be an enormous distance between the stories we tell about someone... and who they really are. She has also taught me that an animal doesn't have to be beautiful to be admirable. It doesn't have to be loved to be essential. And that there is a quiet kind of dignity in those who simply continue being themselves, despite the stories the world insists on telling about them.

Ancient peoples sometimes saw the hyena as a guardian of thresholds, a creature that walked between worlds. Science, meanwhile, recognizes one of Africa's most intelligent and socially sophisticated mammals. I've never felt the need to choose between those two perspectives.

Myths tell the story of our fascination. Science tells the story of who she truly is. And somewhere between the two stands an animal whose richness we are only beginning to understand.

Perhaps the hyena's greatest mystery isn't her laugh, nor the legends that surround her. Perhaps it's our difficulty accepting that something can be unsettling, indispensable, powerful, and deeply misunderstood all at once. To me, the hyena is neither a monster nor a symbol. She is simply a hyena. And that alone is enough to make her one of the most fascinating animals on this planet.

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As for me... I'll keep imagining that somewhere in Africa, night has already fallen. The hyenas have emerged from their dens. They know nothing of the stories humans have told about them. They're simply doing what they've done for millions of years... Living.

«Sometimes we only recognize a being's true worth once we stop seeing them through the fears we've projected onto them.»