#facing camera

Male spotted hyena © Me on Tumblr

Spotted hyena © jonathantz on iNaturalist

Spotted Hyena © Me! on Tumblr

It was dusk as I pulled in to my usual pooch pit-stop site, an old sand quarry. As we stopped I saw a bedraggled, vacant-eyed 'dog' plodding straight towards us as if it was totally unaware of our arrival. My first thought - RABIES, the dumb form. Then I noticed the long, dark shaggy hair, paler around the neck; the sloping back; the spotted legs; the powerful head with erect pointed ears gulp, that's no doggie My second thought - Rabid Hyena So I grabbed my camera and inched the window down just enough to get the lens out. The glassy-eyed animal kept on coming right up to the vehicle then slowly sniffed around it. In my peripheral vision I caught a glimpse of two shadows, one bigger than the other, passing behind the bushes on the far side of the quarry. My hyena obviously saw them too as (s)he immediately looked up, woke up and briskly trotted on down the track. My conclusion was that my hyena was a perfectly healthy juvenile perhaps 60cms at the shoulder (adults +/- 80cms) and that the shadows were the mother and sibling and that possibly they split up to check out the sand pit as they passed. I returned the next morning to find the spoor; lens cap 60mm diameter

Spotted hyenas © michaelbakkerpaiva on iNaturalist

Brown hyena © wcbhp on iNaturalist

Biarritz illustré magazine September 1931