If You Want to See a Cheetah Hunt...

As manager of Dr. Kay Holekamp’s laboratory in Michigan, the Mara is not normally where you find me. Our research assistants (or “RAs”) are the ones in the field and the usual contributors on the blog. Logging hundreds of hours with our hyenas, they collect data that later finds its way to my desk in Michigan. Having never been an RA, it’s been a priority for me to see how ours live and work day-to-day by visiting the Maasai Mara myself – and I was fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to do just that!

“The field” (a catch-all term for anywhere biologists gather their data) doesn't have to be across the world. Depending on the project, a field site might even be the bird feeder in a scientist’s backyard. At the Mara Hyena Project, we’re lucky enough to call the sprawling, scenic grasslands of the Maasai Mara our study site – a place easy to imagine as packed with nonstop action. After all, TV depicts the Mara as a place of constant, thrilling hunts, shot from every angle and in great lighting.

While everyone here has to eat, actually witnessing a hunt isn’t easy as television might make it seem. It’s tough to be a predator, and some of the most popular – cats, like lions and leopards – miss their catch far more often than they succeed. To see a hunt in action, even an unsuccessful one, you have to be in the right place at exactly the right time.

But it’s not all serendipity. There’s a price that every observer, from film crew to researcher, has to pay: Watching gorgeous animals, who could wow you with any number of exciting behaviors, do absolutely nothing but sleep. A lot.


By now you know that we don't study cheetahs, but they do share the Mara with our spotted hyenas. And who passes up the chance to see a cheetah?

The scene is this: We’re on a morning drive, watching a few hyenas at the den. Sacked out in the grass, moms are suckling their cubs. One of our RAs, Jana, is quizzing me on hyena IDs. She takes photos, passes them to me, and I practice recognizing individuals by their spots. It’s shaping up to be a pleasant but routine morning.

We drive on and come across a group of tourist trucks, clustered around something tucked in the grass. It’s a cheetah. There’s no space to squeeze in for a good look, and then an “alien” male – a hyena who isn’t part of our study clans – wanders into view. It’s back to work and we take off after him, following until he’s gone beyond the boundaries of our study groups.

By the time we get back, the cheetah is alone and asleep. Her audience has moved on, searching for a more exciting way to spend their vacation time. We break for a few minutes and hope she’ll do something.


It doesn't look promising. 

We whisper hopeful instructions, encouraging her to notice the nearby antelope or call for a pair of (imaginary) cubs. She gets up and wanders along the roadside, pausing on a mound of dirt. It’s the perfect place to survey the landscape for prey. Is that what she’s doing?


Nope. After this photo she lays back down.

I’m someone who could watch a cheetah sleep all day. When it comes to wildlife viewing, patience is part of the deal – if we wait, who knows what might happen? But we have other work to do. There are no hyenas here now, and we're stalling. A cheetah is still a cat, and she could spend hours napping, relaxing, or just deciding which direction to walk in.

Just a few more minutes, we decide.

Then, there’s the rapid drum of footsteps. I look toward Jana’s window. Outside it, everything is happening at once.

 
The cheetah swings around the back of the car, kicking up dust across the dirt road. She and her target come into full view. 

An African hare!

I swivel the lens and keep shooting. A sprinting cheetah is so fast, you will miss it if you blink.

It all takes just a few seconds. The cheetah gives up the chase, and the hare disappears into the grass. What might have been a brief moment with a sleeping cheetah turned out to be action-packed after all – especially for the hare.
 
Authored by Sabrina S. Salome
Photos © Sabrina S. Salome

Recent hyena-cheetah shenanigans...

As we've seen from earlier blogposts (see "South hyenas are feeling rowdy" and "Interspecies Encounters") hyenas, as well as being skilled hunters, really like to "mess around" with other species. Even when they're not hungry, their curiosity can still get the best of them and they love to investigate just what their neighboring Mara animals are up to. 

This morning started out like any other, just a bunch of sleepy hyenas at the Main Doc clan's den.

I was just getting ready to put some of my cognition testing apparatus with the hyenas when they all jumped to their feet and bolted to the east. This usually indicates they've heard something exciting going on so we dropped everything and accelerated after them.  

We found five pissed off cheetahs.

These are two hyenas out of the "Five Musketeers": a coalition of five cheetah siblings that have been hanging out in Main Doc Territory. 

The five musketeers had accidentally stumbled into a high density of hyenas less than half a kilometer from the den.

This cheetah did not reciprocate the hyenas' desire for playmates.

These poor guys were just trying to relax as the morning sun came up.

The commotion kept attracting more hyenas who wanted to come check out the cheetahs.

This cheetah did not want any hyenas in its personal space.

The cheetahs attempted to hold their ground and ignore the excited hyenas, but enough was enough.

Cheetahs can run really fast and jump quite gracefully.

The cheetahs eventually found refuge in the lugga.

Pissed off cheetah.

Two hyenas chasing a cheetah into the lugga.

Once the cheetahs had fled uphill into the thicket around the lugga the hyenas were apparently satisfied. 

I'm not totally sure if the hyenas felt like they needed to defend their hunting grounds near the den, if they just wanted to assert their superiority over the cheetahs, or if their high curiosity just led them to investigate, but it didn't take long for the cheetahs to get the message and find a different place for their morning nap. 

Overall, hyena-cheetah conflict is limited; reports suggest that hyenas steal only 9% of cheetah kills. While spotted hyenas are a threat to cheetah cubs, lions are actually the biggest competitor of both species. In areas with less lions, both hyena and cheetah numbers increase, partly due to an increase in juvenile survivorship. Cheetahs also hunt more often during the daytime when other large predators like hyenas and lions are less active which helps minimize conflict. 

Further reading:
Caro, T. (1994). Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains: group living in an asocial species. University of Chicago Press.

Sarah M. Durant. (2000). Living with the enemy: avoidance of hyenas and lions by cheetahs in the Serengeti, Behavioral Ecology, 11(6), 624–632. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/11.6.624

When life gives us rain...

...We look for animal tracks in the mud and make plaster casts! 

As a reference, the lion front paw is as big as a female hand with the fingers stretched out!

So Serena Camp is faring much better than Talek Camp. Our complaint of not being able to make it to 2 of 3 hyena dens seems very trivial compared to the midnight evacuations of Talek!!! Really, we can't complain, the rain has brought more carnivores to camp than usual! We have had lions come through camp during the night and early morning, including one big male whose roar literally made me fall out of bed. A hyena casually walked by the dinner table one evening and now hangs around the shower area at night. The usual herbivores still come around occasionally. We had 13 giraffes in camp one afternoon! THAT was noisy as they noticed us and ran away! I literally scared the crap out of one when I emerged from my tent brushing my teeth one morning. We have had many elephants, one of which has taken on the duty of forester/landscaper, trimming the trees along the driveway. 

I also recently discovered a new way to add a video since the original way most likely requires high-speed internet and foiled my plans. So expect many more! This one is of one of our South clan subadult females, Ranch, whooping. She received several whoops in response and shortly after, her mother, the infamous Clovis, showed up!

And this is one of North clan's cubs, Ratchet, the Master of Multitasking- scratching his/her back while grooming his/her belly!

An unexpected addition to this post: On Monday Noémie and I performed our first necropsy on a male from Happy Zebra, Loverboy (LBOY). We suspect he was killed by lions, although I will spare you the gruesome details. He was initially discovered in a torrential downpour at night, covered in tens of thousands of carnivorous army ants, so upon returning the next morning with Doom insect killer, we learned that army ants disappear during the daylight...but maggots persist regardless. Hyenas sometimes smell like dead animals when they're alive. A dead one was much worse. That smell did not wash off easily... or at all in fact. 

As a tribute to Loverboy, we will now present his life in pictures!

....Just kidding. 

I am also incapable of leaving a cheetah photo out of a blog post. So here is a video of the female cheetah who gave birth to a new litter in the first week of April! The video was taken March 29th, just days before she gave birth!

April Showers Bring...Mud.

Impending doom over camp as I left Happy Zebra den

April was a different pace compared to my first few months here. We had much more rain, which meant a lot less time spent in the field collecting data. Rain also meant that the few times we tried to visit the hyena dens, the Mara made sure it was a challenge. Changing a tire at night only 100m from a hyena den as curious hyenas investigate the issue can be a little stressful. Fortunately, our second flat tire occurred during the daytime with no hyenas trying to assist, and when Noémie’s family was visiting, so it went much smoother.

My first week working alone in the Mara, I was unaware that a fuse had come loose in the fuse box of the Land Cruiser while driving in a rocky area one evening. So when I attempted to restart the car and head back to camp, I felt a surge of panic, but quickly regained my composure, knowing that all fuel and liquid levels were good and that the battery was still working. I now know that cars contain a fuse box... After waiting only 2 hours in the darkness standing on top of the vehicle, periodically waving a Maglight towards the glow of headlights on the horizon (with a visit from the South clan hyenas, including Clovis herself, lions fighting and/or killing something in the darkness and jackals and hyenas calling all around), I was graciously rescued by one of the Mara Conservancy mechanics.

My first week alone also included not only my first, but also my second time watching a bunch of hyenas on a kill! Obviously I was quite overwhelmed, especially since the second kill ended up being a different hyena clan than the ones we study, which explained my complete lack of recognition of any hyena! During the first kill, I witnessed Clovis (she seems to be a recurring them in my posts) drag an impala carcass into a mostly dry riverbed (called a lugga in Kenya, after many frustrating attempts to discover the meaning of this word) and then remove it a few minutes later. Intrigued by this behavior I did a little research. Apparently, the intelligent hyenas have discovered that if they cache their food in water, terrestrial predators cannot smell it, nor would they even think to search for it in water. Hyenas also seem to only cache food in small water bodies, not in crocodile-infested waters where they would quickly lose their meal. In March, after seeing a hyena swim across the low-level Mara River, we also discovered that not only can they swim, but they can dive and catch fish as well! These hyenas never cease to amaze us!

Clovis with an impala (dead, obviously)

My second week working alone included getting the tiny little Suzuki Maruti stuck in the mud, twice, but help was never far and both instances occurred during daylight. I am quickly learning to skirt around any area that looks even remotely squishy.

Despite not being out in the field as much, amazing animal moments still occurred! One morning, Noémie and I were overjoyed to come across a caracal! We probably spent more time following it than we should have, but then again, it was a caracal! Who knew when we would see one again? Well, 2 days later, I saw it again while driving back to camp one evening! One of my favorite moments this month, though, was when I was driving back from North clan’s den and came across a female cheetah, lying on a termite mound. I stayed there with her until after darkness when the cheetah left, because that moment was just too special for me to disturb with the noisy engine of the Land Cruiser. She now has a new litter of cubs! Hopefully they have better luck than the previous litter!

CARACAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The most impressive moment happened fortunately when Noémie’s family was visiting. 4 giant male lions were marking their territory in South’s territory and we could tell these big boys had nothing to fear. This was most evident when they had all sacked out against each other in the middle of the plain in the rain but none batted an eye when we drove right up to them for photos. 1 lion is impressive, 2 is incredible, but 4 was absolutely amazing!

Lastly, if any former Fisi campers or blog followers recognize this snake and can confirm that it's not dangerous, that would be very much appreciated considering it is climbing my tent pole in the photo! It was between 1-1.5m long, green scales with black skin underneath, yellow belly, excellent tree climber (slithered straight up the trunk!), and occasionally puffed up its neck like a long balloon, when threatened.

Even during the rainy season, the Mara still manages to entertain!

Return of the Blog

Sorry for the lack of updates to the blog after our faithful contributor, Zach, left! I’m Deanna, the new research assistant here, receiving training from my very patient and helpful fellow RA, Noémie. In my few months here, we have already had many memorable experiences, both good and some less so, and one thing I’ve quickly learned to love about Africa is that incredible memories are the norm and every day brings a new adventure!

It’s been awhile so I’ll start with an update on our hyenas here at Serena Camp. First, both here and at Talek Camp, we witnessed a rare event of hyena infanticide! In our South Clan, the dominant female, Clovis (CLOV), had recently had only 1 new cub, Nali. Clovis’ second-ranked sister, Slinky, had just had 2 cubs, Rastapopulos (RAST) and Makuta (MAKU). Well this did not sit well with Clovis, who waited until a day when Slinky had left her cubs unattended at the den, and then she killed Makuta as he/she was playing with Rastapopulos and Nali! Nothing goes to waste among hyenas though, and Clovis fed the dead cub to her older subadult cubs, Ranch and Cheese Whiz. Within 10 minutes, there was nothing left of poor Makuta, but Clovis fulfilled her role as dominant female and loving mother quite well! They have since moved their den and are split between 2 new dens, making our jobs very difficult. One den is surrounded by bushes and a semi-dry riverbed. The other is on the opposite side of the riverbed and surrounded by a field of various-sized rocks, making it impossible to get closer than 100 meters and aptly named by Noémie as Nightmare Den.

 Clovis: the biggest, the meanest, the smelliest

In Happy Zebra clan, we have an overwhelming amount of cuteness at their den, with 13 cubs (theoretically, although 2 have not been seen in at least a month) play romping around and occasionally forming an indistinguishable pile of fur on chilly mornings. As exasperating as it can get, trying to ID and keep track of all the interactions between these cubs and other hyenas at the den, they make up for it in adorable moments.

In North clan, we have had some interesting interactions, indicative of a rank reversal. Three rough-looking lower-ranking females (Peepers, Waffles, and Eleanor) banded together and chased away the dominant female (RBC). In subsequent observations, RBC has displayed submissive behaviors (ears back, giggling, presenting her rear for inspection, being chased) to most of the other hyenas and their cubs, as though she has fallen from the top to near the bottom of the hierarchy. Many of the North hyenas are in pretty bad shape right now after an alleged bout with lions over a hippo carcass. Hooker is slowly regaining use of her left eye and has gained weight after looking frighteningly anorexic. Many hyenas had open gashes, bad limps, and puncture wounds, but they are healing quickly by human standards!

We were also fortunate enough to see 3 cheetah cubs at 8 weeks old with their mother and hear the famous cheetah chirp! However, the following week, the Mara Conservancy manager, Brian Heath, alerted us that the cubs’ mother was missing (probably killed by lions). We were privileged enough to accompany him and the rangers as they captured the 3 cubs. They are currently residing in an enclosure in Brian’s camp. The Mara has had bad luck with cheetahs since 2008, when the wildebeest migration brought a bad case of mange here that reduced the cheetah population by almost half. The Mara has not had a litter of cheetah cubs survive to adulthood in over 2 years, which makes these 3 cubs’ lives very important to the future of cheetahs here! Thankfully they will be guaranteed food and safety until they reach adulthood and can be released back into the reserve.

I am a bit of a cheetah fanatic so I apologize in advance if I become more focused on cheetahs than hyenas in the future, but I will try my best!

Noémie and I are also inadvertently becoming learned mechanics. We have yet to go a week without some sort of issue arising with either of our vehicles and have had to employ a hydraulic jack on several occasions, even before leaving Nairobi to come to the Mara! We have also spent some of our free time attempting to learn Swahili from the Masai men who help keep camp in order: Moses, Philimon, and George. It’s more impressive coming from Noémie, who is from Switzerland so she translates between French, English, and Swahili! As they say in Swahili, tuna jifunza pole pole (we are learning slowly, slowly).

Among the more memorable of our many nightly adventures, Noémie had a giraffe trip over a guy line of her tent one night and almost take the whole thing with it. We have had hippo and buffalo wars waged in the bush surrounding camp, elephants grumbling their disapproval of our campfire one night, lions mating on the plains in front of camp (and keeping us awake all night!) and rabbits racing for their lives from hyenas and genets but not succeeding as evidenced by clumps of rabbit fur the next morning.

We’ll try to keep contributing updates to the blog! Thank you for your patience, it was a steep learning curve in the beginning but we’re finally getting into as nice a routine as Africa will let us!

Killer cheetah

Cheetahs are pretty big cats, but in most cases if a cheetah encounters leopard, lion, or a hyena (hyenas are neither cats nor dogs), it will almost always retreat or give up kill. Cheetahs specialize in killing Thompson's gazelle (Tommie), a relatively small and fast animal. We have recently seen one male cheetah almost on a daily basis.

We first saw it scent marking territory not too far from our camp. Then we saw it emerging from the bushes one day and Ben said, "It looks like it is going to hunt." Being the diligent HYENA researchers that we are, we left the cheetah to look for hyenas. About 30 minutes later we saw the cheetah scarfing down a Tommie. We had never seen a cheetah hunt, so we were disappointed.

The next day we were on our way home from our morning observations when I spotted the same cheetah crouched about 30 meters from our truck. This cheetah was definitely stalking prey. I didn't want to talk, because the cheetah was close enough that my voice may have disturbed it, so I tapped Ben on the shoulder and quietly said, "cheetah." He slowed down and came to a stop just past the cheetah. I reached in the backseat for my video camera. Before I could get the camera ready, the hunt was on! There was a group of Tommie's about 150 meters away from the cheetah and it seemed an insurmountable distance to cover. I tried to get video for a second and realized it was futile and just sat riveted watching the fastest land animal on earth pursue its quarry. The cheetah closed the gap between itself and the cheetahs in about 5 seconds and chased a small Tommy over a hill. We lost sight of it at this point. We drove over the hill and saw the cheetah carrying the Tommy in its mouth. The chase covered about 300-400 meters in less than 20 seconds, resulting in a nice meal for the cheetah.

A few days later we were once again on our way home and Ben spotted something lying behind a bush. We drove closer to investigate and discovered it was a dead impala. Not just a dead impala, but a large adult male impala. I have seen male impala stand its ground against hungry hyenas, so killing an adult male impala is no small feat. They are fast enough to outrun most predators and strong enough to fend off the smaller predators. Not so on this day.

As the impala came into full view, we saw our friendly cheetah had already eaten the entire left leg of this impala! The cheetah looked fat and seemed to be taking a break from eating. We watched for a few minutes and the cheetah decided it could pack a few more pounds of meat away.

My initial thought was that the impala may have died from some other cause, such as disease, since there was no blood on the impala, except the leg where the cheetah had eaten. After taking a closer look with the binoculars we could see puncture holes in the neck of the impala where the cheetah had clamped it canines around the throat of the recently departed impala.

Later in the evening, another researcher stopped by the kill site and said the cheetah had eaten all four legs (that is where the most muscle tissue is) and most of the high calorie internal organs. Then a young hyena, named Acadia, approached the carcass and began nibbling. After a few nibbles, Acadia pulled the carcass away from the obese cheetah. Had the cheetah not been eating for 3 straight hours, it may have put up a fight. Acadia is about 16 months old and has a long way to go before being a full-size hyena, but an impressive feat none-the-less, taking a fresh kill from a killer cheetah like this one.












Why did I eat so much?

Baby cheetah

After spending nearly 8 months in the Mara, I had never seen a baby cheetah. That gets crossed off the list now. No need to say a lot about these pictures. The bottom line is baby cheetahs are cute. Not as cute as baby hyenas, but close.

Closer encounters

Sticking with the subject of close encounters, one fine morning in the summer of 2007, Katy Califf, Sarah Benson-Amram, Kate and I had a very close encounter with some young cheetahs. Kate may have already posted similar photos, but I am going to post a few additional photos in case new blog readers did not see them.

The morning of July 8, 2007 started as any other. We were doing morning observations for the Mara River clan. On our way to begin a prey census we happened upon three young cheetahs. We stopped about 20 meters from them in order to record their location. We keep records of locations of carnivores we see in the park. We stopped to record the location and watched the cheetahs for a few minutes. Then curiosity got the best of the cats and they approached the car.

After chewing on the tires a bit, one decided to investigate my door. It was scratching at the door, nearly sticking its head in my window. The cheetahs then proceeded to the hood of the truck. At one point the third cheetah tried to jump onto the hood, but there was not enough room and it fell back down. They sat contently on the hood for a few minutes, while we in the car were in disbelief this was actually happening.

They then went onto the roof of the truck and began chewing on our tracking equipment. This was not acceptable, so we had to scold them to stop chewing on our stuff. They did not listen well. Eventually they got bored and hopped down. We did not get bored and would probably still be sitting there if they had not decided to move on. Truly a surreal experience.

If you look closely you can read "Michigan State University Hyena Research" on the hood of the truck. Good PR photo for MSU.

Recognize this picture?


My standard photo whenever I need a picture of myself. (Photo by Katy Califf)


Can I eat that thing?


Scanning for prey...on the hood of our truck!


They are not really crying. The black lines running down their face help to absorb sunlight. This is important for animals that hunt during the day. If you look closely at the lion pictures from the previous post you can see they have light colored patches around their eyes. This helps with night vision, which is important because lions do most of their hunting at night.

I have links for video of the cheetahs on our truck on my website. Click the photos link to navigate to them.
http://www.msu.edu/user/fliesand/index.htm

Hello to Carolyn Kolar. I hope you stay interested in cheetahs, but don't forget about hyenas!

Mangey cheetah

Most visitors to the Mara put cheetahs near the top of the list of animals they would like to see. A few visitors are lucky enough to actually see a cheetah or two. Unfortunately, many of the cheetahs in the park are infected with mange. This is a skin disease caused by mites. The mites are passed from animal to animal through direct contact.

Cheetahs are solitary animals and are rarely seen together, unless it is with siblings or their mother. Given the solitary lifestyle of cheetahs and the low density of cheetahs in the Mara (it is estimated there are around 50 cheetahs here), it seems unlikely they would have high enough contact rates to maintain a high prevalence of mange. Domestic dogs that are frequently in the park may play in a role in the spread and maintenance of mange in the wild animals in the park. Mange is also seen in other animals such as buffalo, but to my knowledge, few thorough studies have been done at this point.

Special thanks to Linda Mansfield for her input on mites and mange!