Hyena cubs of Kasonso

It is with great excitement that we announce the discovery of a hyena den in Kasonso! Whilst on an aerial patrol, our helicopter pilot spotted a hyena sitting at a burrow. He flew around the burrow and the hyena did not move. Usually hyena flee when they see the helicopter so this was very unusual. A few days later we decided to put up a camera trap on a wooden pole near a very active burrow entrance. 5 days later, we retrieved the SD card on the camera trap and much to our surprise, we had thousands of images of two young hyena cubs. The cubs were very busy, moving throughout the day with most of their time spent playing with each other. The mother hyena was also photographed with her cubs. These cubs sniffed the camera regularly and managed to chew the camera strap holding it to the pole. We managed to rescue the camera just in time, but we replaced it with a camera trap placed higher on its wooden pole. A few days later, we found this camera halfway down the burrow and miraculously, there was no damage but plenty of photos of them chewing the straps again. We did get very cute photos of the cubs and we very excited to know that we are protecting a hyena den, one of very few recorded in the greater Kafue ecosystem. Little is known about the hyena population in Kasonso as only a few adults have been sighted by camera trap and we do not hear them call regularly at night. We do believe there are a lot more than we think so we hope to get some understanding of their population size very soon. #ntengusafaris #hyenacubs