Not quite a clan war...

Almost a  clan war two days ago. Dave was getting GPS points from the collared females way up on the border of their territory, further than I’ve ever looked for hyenas let alone seen one and many of the females at the den were looking pretty fucked up. Everyone was gimpy and covered with little wounds. Dave didn’t think it looked like they were fighting lions because many of them had wounds around their face and mouth whereas lions would usually attack the back of a hyena. Julie, Moira, and I drove up to the location Dave suggested and found our north hyenas chasing and being chased by a bunch of unrecognizable hyenas that we called the Oloololo hyenas because that is the direction of the Oloololo gate and mountains.

There was not any physical contact, just hyenas whooping and masses of hyenas moving forward and backwards vying for control of the area. Something smelled absolutely rank and there were a lot of vultures around which made me wonder if a hyena had been killed in the fighting. After a while though the Oloololo hyenas backed off and the north hyenas started meandering towards the north west in the direction the Oloololo hyenas had gone. The smell was getting worse and then we saw it. A dead elephant. It’s massive body was on its side and the hyenas had already made a good hole in its rear and at the base of the neck. Skin was beginning to be peeled back off its ribcage. There were at least twenty Oloololo hyenas on and around the carcass.

While we waited and watched the Oloololo animals sated themselves and started leaving and before long the North clan hyenas started moving in. Less than an hour after we arrived they managed to chase the Oloololo animals off the carcass and started gorging themselves. So the fight was over this elephant carcass right on the border- not a clan war after all.

As the sun got hotter and higher the North animals started getting fat and they would occasionally peel off and go lie down in mud puddle to keep cool before coming back to keep eating. For some of them this mud puddle was clearly just a necessary but annoying distraction from the carcass, they had obviously taken all of two seconds to flop over and get right back up again without wasting any time.

Over the last few days it seems like North and Oloololo have been taking turns at this elephant, and so far no lions have shown up to take over.

Saw several lions and a cheetah yesterday in addition to two leopard teases. Twice in one day we drove over to where some cars were clustered only to be told that a leopard had just been there but was now gone. We had to take their word for it because if a leopard does not want to be seen you won’t see it.

Also we have good reason to believe that Dr. Pepper (or Dr. P for short) is dead. We haven’t seen him in at least three weeks, which wouldn’t be all that unusual because he is getting to the age where he will be making short trips away from the den, but his mother has been around the den a lot with no sign of him. These last three days Ema has shown clear signs to me of being in mourning. She has been at the den with a restless motion in her gait as she gazes around and into the distance- where is her cub? She has been grooming any little cub that comes up to her and her teats are full of milk, undrank. In uncertain confusion she licks the other cubs that greet her and only pulls away with reluctance when they smell her milk. Last night little Rama was the center of her attention and when Rama started to nurse from her this seemed to trigger her parenting instinct and she laid down and let this unrelated cub have her milk, grooming her back while Rama suckled. If Ema does not know where Dr. P is then he is surely dead. It broke our hearts to watch Ema wandering around the den hopefully sniffing every cub that came her way even though she knew that not one of them was her own Dr. P.

On another note- still no luck with darting and Dave only has another week or two left! We’re hoping to catch Saur or Digs leaving the elephant carcass but we’re starting to worry that Marten is dead since it’s been a month since we’ve seen her and she was not at either of two carcasses that we’ve seen south clan at. However Marten is a low-ranking female and low ranking animals might not show their faces for several months at a time.