ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

We woke one morning and decided that a Hyena hunting safari would be a great idea. While encountering these critters regularly on other safaris throughout Africa, we decided to add a Hyena to the trophy room. Well, that was the intention at least.

Having done some research, we decided to focus on Spotted Hyena. Brown Hyena are also available in South Africa but are not exportable to the USA. Striped Hyena permits only get issued in other countries such as Tanzania.

We learnt that hard way that when Hyena hunting, you need luck, patience and a dark night with little moon light. We seemed to be lacking in all three departments.

Hyena hunting is tiring, long hours and functioning on very little sleep. On this safari, we travelled more than 150 miles daily to explore different concessions and private ranches. Our travels took us through Limpopo, up to the Botswanan border and through the little town of Alldays.

We decided that if we were fortunate enough, we would also take a Brown Hyena at the same time. Using night vision and FoxPro callers, we only once heard the return call of a Spotted Hyena.

Do not let anyone tell you Leopards in South Africa are endangered. Every evening at locations miles apart, we had a cat come in within 10 minutes, absolutely crazy. At one venue, we had two different Leopards in 30 minutes.

The accommodation was great, but the extensive travelling not very pleasant. But, not giving up we will be heading out Brown Hyena hunting in August and again for another attempt at Spotted Hyena hunting in a different location of South Africa. Try and try until you succeed, its game hunting after all. At this point, the Spotted Hyena is still doing all the laughing