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By Peace Parks Foundation staff
Peace Parks Foundation is an African conservation organization working to reconnect Africa’s wilderness areas, transcending human political borders to create, manage, and protect transboundary landscapes.
Declare kinship with the hyena, and all hyenas are your friend
African proverb
Something remarkable is happening in Mozambique, a country on the east coast of sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2018, the National Administration for Conservation Areas, which directs the management of national parks and reserves, signed a fifteen-year agreement with Peace Parks Foundation to restore, develop, and manage Maputo National Park, in the southern tip of the country. Joint responsibility is being taken for the health and wealth of this hugely important protected area in the wake of a civil war.
Through historic pressures, much biodiversity has been lost from the region. Among the surviving species, furthermore, are many in need of revival. And so has begun an ambitious wildlife translocation program to the national park—one whose focus goes beyond just the iconic species. The aim is to aid the recovery of a diversity of species which once thrived in the area, in order to restore balance, abundance, and inter-connections. Re-building the lost rhythms at scale is a highly sensitive process since every species has a unique place and different dependencies within the system.
Rewilding in Maputo National Park has begun with kudu, impala, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest, eland, zebra, and other prey species of the plains. These animals’ return to abundance is being supported by the protection of the national park by management teams and rangers, as well as the restored connectivity between historical ranges provided by ecological linkages, or natural animal ‘walkways’.
The Mozambique Wildlife Alliance is a vital partner in the success of this initiative—and many projects before—by making the complex task of relocating animals a safe and smoothly orchestrated one. The organization’s vets have seen many species land successfully in their new homes and go on to flourish. And with a quarter of Mozambique’s area being designated for conservation—coupled with the nation’s visionary rewilding outlook—their service will be valued here for many years to come.
In Maputo National Park, with prey species now beginning to thrive, attention is turning to predators. These include the spotted hyena, a species almost eradicated in the area but for a small remnant population who survived the challenging years of conflict there.
Spotted hyenas are social animals, and they live in complex matrilineal groups. Recently, in a move to augment the spotted hyena population in Maputo National Park, a small clan has been translocated from Sabie Game Park. This is a protected area in western Mozambique that shares a border with South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Sabie’s population of spotted hyenas is sufficiently healthy, on account of its own wildlife revival, to be able to spare these animals.
Famously, the lives of hyenas are filled with laughter, with vocal communication ranging from cries and yells to howls and growls. In Setswana, they are known as sephira or phiri, meaning “the animal of the secret,” hinting at mysteries yet to be discovered. South African people know hyenas by their Zulu name, impisi, while some Zimbabwean tribes call them sisi, meaning “the purifier” or “the one who makes things orderly.”
Hyenas are among the only predator species able to process large amounts of bone in their digestive systems—supporting their important role as scavengers—and through this they deposit calcium back into the environment. Put differently, if hyenas disappeared from the landscape, natural links between dead matter, plant life, prey, and predators would be disrupted, with consequences for the ecosystem as a whole.
Yet, throughout history, few animals have enjoyed less sympathy or experienced worse press than hyenas. They have been shrouded in sinister beliefs, persecuted as ‘vermin’, and targeted for traditional medicine. Two species, the brown and the striped hyena, are classified by the IUCN as Near Threatened—a status which reflects unfavorably on humans, who are undoubtedly the major threat to their survival. Indeed, human-wildlife conflict is a significant hindrance to their prospects of surviving and thriving.
In the case of the spotted hyenas in Maputo National Park, however, there is a story of hope and opportunity. Translocation into a secure and ecologically balanced environment provides the animals with access to a stable and diverse prey base, promoting their overall health and reproductive success. In addition, connectivity with other suitable habitats allows the newly introduced animals to interact with existing residents, leading to greater gene flow and an improved resilience of the larger hyena population.
A thriving and self-sustaining hyena population also fosters the development of complex social structures within clans, enhancing cooperation, communication, and the overall well-being of individual animals. By securing a habitat where they can express their natural behaviors and contribute to ecosystem dynamics, spotted hyenas will also benefit from an improved chance of long-term survival as a species.
In turn, as these animals gradually become re-established and extend their range, they will benefit the broader tree of life. As one example, the presence of spotted hyenas in Maputo National Park will support the much-anticipated reintroduction of cheetahs when the time comes, by helping things run smoothly and cleanly.
Rewilding Successes 