Conservationists hail re-wilding success as hyenas return to Mozambique park

The hyenas were darted and transported unconscious 

Credit:  Jo Taylor

It is more than 40 years since hyenas vanished from Mozambique’s Zinave National Park, their blood-curdling screams silenced by a catastrophic loss of wildlife during the country’s long civil war.  

Now, their shrieks and whoops are once again echoing across this devastated landscape in what conservationists have hailed as one of the region’s most significant rewilding success stories.   

Four spotted hyenas, two males and two females, have been released into the park after five years of efforts to re-establish a viable ecosystem. 

“As far as I know this is the first time hyenas have been moved like this," said Dr Johan Marais, a wildlife veterinarian who founded Saving the Survivors.

The organisation teamed up with Administração Nacional das Áreas de Conservação, (Mozambique’s conservation department,) and the Peace Parks Foundation and other wildlife organisations to organise the move.

“Hyenas are predators, and they hunt as often as lions would, so I think what a lot of people don’t realise is that they are situated at the top of the food chain, and have the ability to influence the density of other predators and herbivores,” Dr Marais said. “So it is very important to have apex predators as they have a major effect on the ecology.”

Zinave was declared a protected area in 1972, but lost almost all its large mammals during Mozambique’s devastating 1977 to 1992 civil war, in which nearly one million people died. 

Since 2015 the park has been part of the Mozambique component of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, which also includes  parks in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Wildlife vet Dr Joao Almeida with a hyena he just darted in Mozambique’s Sabie Game Park.

Credit: Jo Taylor/@WireImgId=38609428

More than 2000 animals from 13 different species, including elephant and buffalo, have already been relocated from other parts of the Limpopo area to restore ecological balance to this landscape. The hyenas are the first apex predators to return and were only released when scientists were satisfied herbivore populations were properly established. 

The programme overseen by Dr Joao Almeida,  a Saving the Survivors vet, began last year when the four Hyenas were darted and then taken from the Sabie Game Park, one of Mozambique’s first private reserves.

The animals first had to be put into isolation and tested for diseases for several weeks, and were then loaded, unconscious, into a plane and airlifted for a 90-minute flight to their new home. They were kept in an electrified compound for several weeks before being released into a protected sanctuary alongside the other re-introduced animals. 

Data from satellite collars fitted to two of the hyenas before their release indicates they are increasingly confident in their new environment and are moving around the sanctuary, mostly at night, Saving the Survivors said in a Facebook update on Sunday. 

“In a collaboration with some of our closest partners….this project shows exactly what can be done when conservation organisations work together. Real, tangible results. Rewilding an area that had been ravaged by man and returning it to its former natural glory,“ it said. 

Peace Parks says it plans to introduce more predators, including lion and leopard, to Zinave in 2021. Rehabilitation of Mozambique’s wildlife areas, including the famous Gorongosa National Park, continues.