NSS Episode Three: Moving Day

In a land where Elf (the dominant female) is queen, and clashes with lions are the norm, we bring you a clan. Located between the beautiful Oz Valley and the famous Mara River, this is where the drama unfolds. Known to many as “fisi,” we just call them “North.”

This is the North Side Story.

Episode 3: “Moving Day”

All of the fan mail, post cards, and requests for autographs have really gotten to our cast members of the North Side Story. Just the other day, they decided that the current den they were living in was not receiving the spotlight as well as it should have.

Abandoned den with new resident mongoose.

Thus, they moved to a den that would garner just a little more attention.

Ok, they moved to a den that would encourage a whole new fan base. They moved to a den that is right off the main road near Serena Lodge. Now every tourist, visitor, and guest of the Mara Conservancy can’t go a single day without acknowledging our new blog-stars.

New den just off the main road.

My guess is next week we’ll see them on MTV-cribs. Hopefully they’ll make sure to clean up nicely before the film crews arrive.

Courtship -- hyena style

Although it is perfectly clear that adult male spotted hyenas are sexually interested in adult females who might be getting ready to mate, it is equally clear that males experience rather dramatic emotional conflicts during courtship.

On the one hand, a male hyena wants to mate with the female, and for this he obviously needs to remain in close proximity to her, but on the other hand he clearly fears biting attacks by the female, and this appears to make him want to keep a safe distance from her. Thus courtship interactions in this species are therefore characterized by extreme male ambivalence. They are also characterized by apparent indifference on the part of the female, who generally seems to ignore the male’s courtship gestures altogether.

The other day I watched the male (standing) in the pictures at right expressing very strong sexual interest in a female dozing near the den. He would repeatedly tiptoe up to her while she napped, but as soon as she lifted her head (even if she was not even orienting toward him), he would dash out of range of her jaws. You can see from his posture, with his front foot elevated, that he was always ready to flee even as he approached the female.

You can also see how aroused he was, because he was sporting a phallic erection that actually flipped up against his belly. He engaged over and over in this sequence of behaviors, in what we call an “approach-avoid” display. Obviously male spotted hyenas must overcome a very unusual set of motivational challenges in order to court large, aggressive, well-armed females.

Hyena watching in the western Mara

Just over one year ago, we set up a new carnivore monitoring station and research camp in the western part of the Masai Mara National Reserve. Here are some shots I took this week of the camp as it is now (complete with resident wart hogs foraging among our tents), and one of Dave and Jeff out on morning "Obs" parked (in our one good car!) at the den of the Serena North clan.

Car woes

Here's a dilemma: as two of our 4-wheel drive bush vehicles are REALLY on their last legs these days, awhile back I asked our program officer at the National Science Foundation, the federal agency that supports most of our hyena work, whether we might be able to get a supplement to our current grant large enough to allow us to replace one of our ancient decrepit cars with a new one. The program officer wrote back today to say that they can give us some money toward a new car, but that all they have available right now is $15,000. Well, that's problematic because we need about three times that much to purchase a car that can hold up under bush conditions. And since our university, like most universities these days, is in the midst of a financial crisis, I figured I might as well ask the readers of this blog whether they have any ideas how we might raise the funds to supplement those NSF is offering us right now. The rub is that, if we don't figure out how to supplement the NSF offer by 15 July, we are likely to lose even the $15,000 they are offering us right now. Unfortunately at this point, that's probably the likeliest scenario.

Why do we need a new car so badly? Well, because once you leave the major cities, most roads here are pitted with ruts and potholes so deep that driving into one at any speed higher than about 10 mph can break your axle. And those roads beat cars up pretty badly over time. Two of our current cars (see photo) are so old that they now cost us a fortune to keep running. I bought one of them in 1995 and the other in 1999. That means parts for those cars are not only expensive, but also hard to find. Although we do weekly maintenance and small repairs on all our vehicles, these old cars keep breaking down with problems so severe that we can't fix them ourselves. To get your car towed from the remote Kenyan bush back to Nairobi costs us $500 each time it happens. And these cars are so old that this is happening a lot these days. The other day we broke down near our striped hyena study site in Shompole and had to be towed all the way back to the capital. That took all day and cost 29,000 Kenya shillings! Most importantly, because we study larege carnivores that would find any of us to be a delicious suppertime treat, we need to monitor them from inside cars, and those cars really need to work well!

So, if you miraculously happen to have some cash lying around that you want to donate to a good cause, please consider giving it to us (and soon!) so we can avoid losing the NSF funds and get ourselves a car that will allow us to do our work without having to spend endless hours diagnosing car problems every day.

Giving birth though a soda straw: ouch!!

One of the most mysterious and bizarre characteristics of the spotted hyena is the heavily masculinized genitalia of the female. Here you can see adult female Gucchi (wearing the radio collar) investigating the genitalia of adult female Carter (who has her butt toward the camera and her tail raised) during a greeting ceremony at the den (that's Gucchi's cub, Alfredo, scratching himself while his mom greets). Notice that Carter has a male-like pseudoscrotum and a male-like phallus. It is not known why female spotted hyenas sport such unusual genitalia. However, one of the most amazing things about all this, in my opinion, is that the female is obliged to give birth through that narrow tube. Cubs weigh just over two pounds at birth, so imagine introducing a baby that size to the world via that route. It has GOT to hurt! In fact, the female's pseudopenis tears when she bears her first litter, and this natural episiotomy leaves a neat strip of pink scar tissue on the posterior surface (see blow-up). Thus, even if her first cubs die before we can ever see them, we can tell that a young adult female has given birth based on the presence of that scar tissue.

Look Out Poachers

The Mara Conservancy has just made a giant leap forward in anti-poaching efforts. Just this week they welcomed eight dog-handling rangers and two new “officers” into their ranks. After an intensive four-week training with two professional dog trainers from the Colorado police department, these dogs are ready to assist the Conservancy and surrounding lodges.


Using their amazing bloodhound sense of smell, the rangers will bring these dogs to poachers’ camps and follow individual tracks left behind as people flee. For Mamusi and Murani (the dogs; meaning “something we’ve been waiting for” and “warrior” in Masai) following the trails left by the poachers is the easy part. For the rangers, keeping up with such strong dogs that enjoy every minute of tracking, is much more challenging.

Jeff and I had the opportunity to follow along on a training exercise and boy can these dogs run! To prepare the rangers for extreme all-night tracking, each ranger had to go through (and continue) rigorous conditioning. This includes running multiple kilometers around the camp daily, all-encompassing weight training, and being able to traverse the nearby escarpment in under seven minutes!


We ran about a mile and a half following the dogs in our practice run, and I cannot imagine what it must feel like during the real thing. Running through the dark of night with no lights, surrounded by grass that is at least eight feet tall, all the time searching for people that you know have no remorse for breaking laws.

After lightly jogging behind these dogs, I know there is absolutely no way I could out-run them in the middle of the night.

Good luck poachers when they are at full speed!

What else is out there at night besides hyenas?

Here are a few photos from our Shompole camera traps to give you an idea of the diversity of life-forms wandering around there at night. See if you can identify all these animals. I'll post answers in my next blog entry.

Running back: a reentry

As I’ve mentioned in past entries, I often turn to jogging for all my therapeutic needs. Handily, it also accomplishes my exercise needs. So here’s an account of my thought progression during my first run back in the Mara:

Minute 1: So happy to be back on my feet on my old stomping grounds. Feeling light and energetic and ready to take on the world(!). (Sigh. This won’t last.)

Minute 6: The endorphins must be starting to kick in, because I’m having one of those isn’t-nature-so-amazing moments—a common feeling here in the Mara. I’m struck by the unparalleled blue and wide expanse of the Kenyan sky, the spectacular view of the hills rolling in the distance, and the serenity of the afternoon.

Minute 8: Moment over. Cue running, screaming, and waving children. At first I feel the warmth of familiarity, of a reunion with old friends…the same feeling I got when I saw Morpheus, my favorite hyena. But I’m quickly brought out of my genial haze as I get a swift elbow to the thigh. An overzealous kid is insisting on running six inches in front of me and is swinging his elbows like there’s no tomorrow. Well-intentioned, my young friend, but please excuse me as I gently shove you aside.

Minute 25: My mind wanders to random topics as I try to preoccupy myself during the long middle stretch…the Red Sox are 5 games up, that’s lovely (an ocean away, I still care)…Murphy should be having a new litter of cubs soon…I wonder what my most-loved one is up to right now...hopefully missing me….

Minute 33: I approach a group of older kids walking home from school. One by one, they fall into step with me, saying hello and then silently joining the trek. Now we are four, now nine, now fourteen. I smile, saving my biggest grin for the lone girl, knowing that she has faced many hardships to stay in school this long, and will surely face countless more if she is to finish secondary school against all odds.

Minute 36: “What is your name?” my companions want to know. “Leslie” is particularly difficult for Kenyans to say, and I am reminded of my journey to the Mara on a lorry from Nairobi a few days ago. While waiting for the driver to return from errands, a parking enforcement officer sidles up to my open window.

“You can’t park here.”
“Sorry, it’s not my lorry. You’ll have to talk to the driver. He’ll be back soon.”
“You have to pay a fine.” I wonder if this is because my white skin makes me look like an easy target for cash. Or maybe we’re just actually parked illegally. Probably both. I decide to use my charm as a young American woman to my advantage and offer an innocent smile and a Kiswahili apology. This seems to do the trick for the moment and we ease into small talk. He asks my name, and when I tell him, he makes me repeat it. He tries to write it down, and it takes him three tries of listening to me spell it for him before he gets it right.
“That’s too hard,” he says. “You need a Maasai name. I think it should be Naisenya.”
“Naisenya? That’s pretty, I like it. I think I’ll keep it.” He writes it down for me so I can get it right. He wanders off, having forgotten all about our parking ticket.

So I hesitate when the school children ask my name. I contemplate which is worse: giving my real name, which they’ll have trouble pronouncing, or giving my new Maasai name, and sounding completely crazy. I decide to go for it:

“Naisenya.” They dissolve into giggles—it’s a common Maasai name, but they can see I’m no Maasai. This disconnect pleases them to no end. I’m glad I went with that one.

Minute 48: Want to die. Cursed altitude, cursed equatorial heat, cursed unblinking sun, cursed Kenya! I’m too out of shape for this. What was I thinking, running this far my first time?!? That was an error. Maybe I shouldn’t have come running at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back to Kenya at all. Cursed heat.

Minute 59: The end is in sight, and with it, the endorphins are flowing freely again. I happily reach camp, reveling once more in my surroundings. My moments of self-pitying drama have passed and I decide that I am, without a doubt, happy to be back at Fisi Camp.

At least until the next time I try to run.

NSS Episode Two: Fifty Cent's Triumph

In a land where Elf (the dominant female) is queen and clashes with lions are the norm, we bring you a clan. Located between the beautiful Oz Valley and the famous Mara River, this is where the drama unfolds. Known to many as “fisi,” we just call them “North.”

This is the North Side Story.

Episode 2: “Fifty Cent’s Triumph”

It was just like any other day at the North den. That was until food was brought back for the cubs. It was at first a free for all with Krest, Avalanche, Sagrada and Fifty Cent fighting over the small leftovers. Sagrada then stealthily swooped in and stole the food from the other cubs and ran across the den to keep what was left for himself.

This peeked the interest of a previously sleeping Muay Tai who ganged up with Fifty Cent to try and recover the food with force. Sagrada nimbly avoided these two but in doing so he missed the sneak attack by Avalanche. Avalanche took advantage of the distraction by Muay Tai and Fifty Cent and claimed the food for himself. After successfully stealing the food, Avalanche came snout to snout with his big brother Tsunami. Dominant versus submissive. A showdown between brothers.

Tsunami saw his opportunity and without hesitation made his move. He did not count on Avalanche’s patented side-step move, and Avalanche smoothly slid by his brother who missed the food completely. This last movement woke a sleeping (as usual) Jiu-Jitsu who decided Avalanche’s prize looked like a tasty morsel. Jiu-Jitsu knew he was bigger than Avalanche so he tried a rush approach on the food. Avalanche was not fooled and countered with a bite that caught Jiu-Jitsu off guard and caused him to retreat quickly. Avalanche then made his first mistake. He set down his prize to look for further attacks. At that point Fifty Cent swiftly swooped in and tore the remaining meat off the bone and quickly retreated into the den, leaving Avalanche staring in disbelief. Within a couple of minutes Fifty Cent reemerged from the den without the food and looking quite triumphant. Fifty Cent’s raid temporarily distracted Avalanche giving the other cubs a chance to sneak in and secure the prize.

What followed was a melee of attacks until Sagrada again emerged with the prize. His capturing of the prize surprised him so much, considering his low rank that he overlooked the one cub he should have been watching for, Fifty Cent.

Fifty Cent bided his time until he knew Sagrada was lost in chewing. He then snuck in and grabbed the bone from the complacent Sagrada and again raced back into the den leaving all the other cubs staring in confusion.

How low can your belly go?

A hungry adult spotted hyena can consume a LOT of food in a single meal. An adult hyena is shown in the top photo before consuming a meal. An adult female typically weighs about 65 kg (roughly 145 lbs). Although average meal size for spotted hyenas varies across Africa from 0.2 kg to 9 kg, an individual hyena can consume approximately 18 kg of meat and bone in an hour. That's 40 lbs of food, folks. Imagine how you'd feel if you had just consumed 160 Quarter Pounders at one sitting. A bit bloated, right? Well the bottom photo here shows you what a spotted hyena looks like under the same circumstances. Notice that she's still going strong, continuing to feed even though her belly is almost touching the ground. Now you can also imagine how hard it is to determine when a female spotted hyena is pregnant based on her appearance; with her belly size going up and down this much during feeding and fasting, it's very tough to detect the presence of a litter that, at most, will weigh only about 3 kg!

Why eat so much at a single meal that you can barely waddle away afterward? Well, if you're a female spotted hyena, you do this because your ability to produce and support babies is strictly determined by how much food you consume. And you never know when or where your next meal might be coming from. If you were dining at McDonald's and knew you might not be able to eat again for several days, I bet you'd probably try to jam in an extra Quarter Pounders or two yourself.