Hyena darting!

Good day yesterday, we found and darted Digs! We had a quiet morning at the den but very soon encountered a hyena walking down the stankho track and set up for a target trial before even IDing her. Once she got closer we were delighted to recognize that right c notch in Digs’ ear. Four tourist cars were driving up so we ended up cutting the trial short but we called Dave and started following Digs until Dave arrived. She led us halfway across the territory and it seemed like we would lose her a few times but after she crossed Mgorro lugga but before she got to Mega Junction she turned off the road into the short grassy area near leopard tree. It was the perfect place, no water nearby that she could get in trouble to and short grass for easy sighting. Apparently she walked right up the cruiser and then turned sideways and gave Dave the perfect shot.

Super neat to see a hyena up close and touch her ears and paws. She didn’t want to give us blood at first so we did teeth measurements and body length measurements, got her weight, did bacterial swabs of just about every orifice, noted scars, pulled off a few ticks, tried to collect milk (with no luck, but its usually hard to get any milk with giving a oxytocin injection), posed and took photos, and finally at the end Dave hit a good vein and we collected seven vacutainers of blood, 3 whole blood, 2 for serum and 2 for plasma. Then we loaded her up into the back of the cruiser and Moira, Emily, and I rode in the back with her while we drove to the darting drop off spot. It’s a spot in a little bit of sheltered woods far away from anything she could get into trouble with. She was starting to wake up and lift her head some but telazol is a drug that wears off very slowly so no worries. It puts them in a drunken dreamy state while also having an amnesiac effect so that they won’t remember being poked and prodded.

Yesterday evening we drove back to that area and there was no sign of Digs and we weren’t picking up her signal from her new collar which is typically a good thing because it means that she came out of it enough to move a good distance. However, we won’t breathe easy until we see her alive and well.

This morning we went out to Happy Zebra, and the den was very quiet. Nice to get out and watch a happy zebra sunrise after doing just north and south mornings for the last three weeks (in hopes of darting). Lots of zebra and hazy sunrise which meant we could watch the perfect sphere of the sun coming up over the horizon. No hyenas anywhere but we did see a cheetah mom and cub! Cub was just starting to get big but still gray and fluffy and playful. Super adorable, we followed them for about thirty minutes before heading in.