My African safari was full of great memories. One of the best finds by our guide was a Spotted Hyena den chock full of pups of various ages.

How we happened upon this den was an exciting story. On our first game drive in Botswana, we happened upon a pack of African Wild Dogs. When it became too dark to photograph let alone see, we started our journey back to camp for the night. No sooner had we packed up our gear when we heard the dogs and hyena fighting. We turned on the spotlights on the jeep and headed toward the noise. It seems as the dogs were making their way, they happened upon the hyena den and a territorial spat ensued. While we couldn’t make any clicks with our cameras, we now had a new location to scout over the coming game drives.
The next day we returned to the den to find only pups, no parents! It truly amazed me how these pups took care of themselves while their parents were out gathering food. We worked this area for an hour or so. As the pups became more comfortable they came very close to our vehicle. They are very photogenic animals.

On our last game drive at Chitabe, we happened upon one of the adult Hyena picking over the remains of an Elephant. Was this soon to be lunch for the Hyena Pups? We couldn’t tell you as we had a flight to catch!

I have been working on a series of posts about what is involved in preparing for an African Safari. I have received a lot of inquiries in this regard and I figured putting together all the emails into a post or two would be useful. Stay tuned!