Dr Ben Muller was recently requested to capture and collar spotted hyenas in the Odzala-Kokoa National Park in the Republic of Congo, on behalf of Back to Africa NPO. 

 

The operation was a success and the conservation team managed to collar and collect data from 4 individuals, 2 males and 2 females. We managed to free-dart one individual and the rest were successfully caught in cage traps. This is the first collaring operation performed on these enigmatic, forest adapted animals.

 

Spotted hyena are locally extinct in many regions outside of the park and we hope that the data from these collars can help elucidate as to why the population is not growing outside of protected areas. There is also very little known about the habits and behaviour of this reclusive, forest dwelling species and we are looking forward to any new research and information that comes from this project.

 

A big thank you to the conservation team from African Parks and Dr Richard Harvey that made this operation a success.