Hyaena Conservation Workshop

Help Andrew, Ingrid, Arjun, and Miquel get to Namibia for the Hyena Conservation Workshop!

 
The Hyaena Specialist Group is holding a three-day workshop in June at the Ongava Research Centre in Namibia, where we will work on the future of hyena conservation through our Hyaena Distribution Mapping Project. This ambitious project began in June 2018, and will result in new range maps for the four species of the family Hyaenidae; spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta), striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) and aardwolf (Proteles cristata). Range maps for these ecologically important carnivores have not been updated since 1998.
 
Over the past eleven months, we have collected and collated presence and absence data from hundreds of sources across the vast range (Africa, Asia, and Europe) of the four species, including the collaboration of researchers, protected area managers, government agencies, environmental NGOs and citizen science platforms (check out our iNaturalist project! ). To date, we have accumulated more than 60,000 occurrence records: > 23,000 for spotted hyena, > 8,400 for striped hyena, >30,700 for brown hyena, and > 1800 for aardwolf. Preliminary maps of the raw data are included here (see maps below), and our initial visualizations are already telling us where the data gaps are. We are also excited to report that the brown hyena, which historically has the smallest range of the four species, appears to be undergoing a range expansion and could qualify for green listing. This is rare, positive news for a large carnivore. In addition, we have collated a wealth of threats and density information through this data collection process, including many unpublished studies. We expect that this tremendous sampling effort will result in the most comprehensive dataset collected for any of the Carnivora yet, enabling a detailed conservation assessment of these species and the influences impacting their sustainable persistence in increasingly humanized landscapes around the world.
 
Thus far, all of this work has been made possible by the volunteer efforts of members of the Hyaena Specialist Group and a small number of experts with experience mapping the occurrence of carnivores. It is now necessary for the key collaborators, including multiple graduate students, to convene in person to review the available data, to delegate core tasks, and to discuss and analyze the large amounts of information collected by such diverse means. The Ongava Research Centre has graciously agreed to host the workshop and provide a modern conference venue as well as accommodation and food for all participants free-of-charge.

However, we are in need of funds to assist with the travel costs for four participants.

Here are their stories:

Andrew Jacobson, shown here conducting an interview in Mozambique.

Andrew is a conservation biologist who uses geographic information systems (GIS) to research the location and distribution of special species and places on planet Earth. He attended the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University where he earned his Master’s degree and began a specialization in GIS. He then obtained his PhD from the Geography Department at the University College London, with research focusing on the distribution of large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes of East Africa. After his PhD, Andrew worked as a Science and Geospatial Advisor to the National Geographic for 18 months.
 
Andrew has studied the distribution of large African carnivores for nearly a decade, and has led or helped lead efforts mapping the distribution of the African lion,  African cheetah, and the global distribution of the leopard. While studying these species, it became obvious that hyenas, the remaining members of the large carnivore guild of Africa (other than African wild dogs which are monitored via cheeathandwilddog.org) were poorly known and monitored.  As other large carnivores have declined precipitously in recent decades in Africa and Asia, the need to understand the distribution of Hyaenidae became clearer.
 
Andrew initiated the hyena distribution mapping project while he was a research assistant at Duke University in Spring 2018. The hyena project has been an active research item for almost 18 months. However, there has been no financial support for this research and it has been conducted completely as a volunteer.  Moreover, Andrew is currently in between full-time work. He worked as an assistant at Duke University and as an adjunct faculty member at Catawba College, also in North Carolina, this past semester.

Follow Andrew on Twitter .


Ingrid Weisel, the Brown Hyena Research Project in Namibia.

Ingrid established the Brown Hyena Research Project as a non-profit organization, which has since developed into the longest existing research and conservation project on brown hyenas, in 1997. Ingrid's research focus was initially on behavioural aspects, but she quickly became involved in conservation topics, as her main study site was located within a restricted area (now known as the Tsau//Khaeb National Park), where open-pit diamond mining took place. Ingrid became a member of the Large Carnivore Management Association of Namibia, which deals with conflict management and policy making, and was invited to become an IUCN Hyaena Specialist Group member in 1999. Since then, human-carnivore conflict, population monitoring and continuous modelling of abundance and distribution, both locally and globally, has become the major focus of her work. The Brown Hyena Research Project entirely relies on donations from Namibian supporters for our daily operation costs and therefore Ingrid is looking for a contribution towards her traveling costs to attend the workshop.

To learn more about Ingrid and the brown hyenas, visit her website  and Facebook page .


Arjun Dheer, the Hyena Project in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.

Arjun Dheer is a PhD student with the Ngorongoro Hyena Project, based at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. Arjun has worked with large carnivores across several remote field sites in sub-Saharan Africa since 2013. His main interest is the application of behavioral ecology to promote conservation outcomes. His PhD focuses on the adaptability of spotted hyenas to anthropogenic activity in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. He hopes to attend the HSG workshop in order to collaborate with fellow HSG members and learn from their expertise in order to improve hyena conservation practice.
 
Learn more about what Arjun is up to on YouTube , Instagram , or Twitter.
And please visit the Hyena Project's website !


Miquel Torrents-Tico, interviewing the locals about their wildlife in northern Kenya.
(striped hyena photo courtesy Daniel Burgas)

I am Miquel Torrents-Ticó. I am a PhD student at the Global Change and Conservation group (GCC) and a student member of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki. In addition, I am a National Geographic Explorer. My main interest concerns human-hyena conflicts. Through my PhD, I take an interdisciplinary approach to understand human-hyena interactions by investigating local attitudes and perceptions towards spotted hyenas, and identify the aspects of spotted hyena ecology that are associated with the conflict (e.g., animal movement, activity rhythm, stress hormone levels and diet across anthropogenic gradients).

Moreover, I am a Member of the Hyena Specialist Group from the IUCN Species Survival Commission. As an HSG member, I have collaborated with the collection and collation of occurrence and absence data from hundreds of sources across the vast range (Africa, Asia, and Europe) of the family Hyaenidae; spotted hyena, striped hyena, brown hyena and aardwolf. Thus far, it is necessary for us, the key collaborators, to convene in person to review the available data, to delegate core tasks, and to discuss and analyse the large amounts of information collected by such diverse means. Therefore, this funding will allow me to participate in a three-day workshop at the Ongava Research Centre (Namibia), and together with the team inform the world about the status and trends of biodiversity, as well as enhancing and supporting the Species Survival Commission network to further significant outcomes across the species conservation cycle.

Keep track of Miquel's adventures on his website , Twitter , and Instagram .

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We will greatly appreciate any donations towards travel costs to Namibia in June - and thank you for helping us with our efforts to understand and conserve the hyenas!