Today, Maxie and the team are bringing them to their new home from Bloemfontein.

Finally our journey with the hyenas are almost completed.

We have been busy finishing their new enclosure so it is now ready for them!

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Unfortunately, we have to share some terrible news in their story.

Hyenas Escaped and Recaptured

About three weeks ago one of the hyenas managed to escape from its enclosure and went wandering onto the adjacent farm. Although the hyenas were not yet in our name or our responsibility we decided that something needed to be done.

Richard Daniell, Director of the Daniell Cheetah Project (DCP), went out with a trained game capture team* and vet** to dart the hyena. It was successfully darted and moved back into its enclosure.

Above – the hyena was returned to his family in his enclosure after being darted

Second Hyena Escape

Unfortunately the enclosure was not up to standard and, less than a week later, the hyena escaped again. What followed was a night after night vigil and daily search for this hyena, where in the meantime we got reports of the hyena catching livestock and creating havoc. We also got threats from the livestock owner that they WILL kill the animal on sight.

Richard begged them to give him some time in order for us to recapture the animal – this led to several trips for Richard and the vet, as well as a chopper being hired to help in the search.

Hyenas Illegally Shot

The people from the farm eventually managed to track the hyena back to the enclosure, where they decided enough is enough. They saw a hyena and fired a shot. A couple of seconds later they saw a hyena running out of a nearby bush and fired another shot. It then turned out that they had brutally murdered the two innocent hyenas in their enclosure. The culprit was still on the loose.

Again, Richard begged them not to take any drastic measures and to give him one more week. Day and night, on the whole of the weekend 28th – 29th May, the vet searched for the hyena. It was closer; they could hear it calling but unfortunately could not successfully dart the animal.

Plans were immediately made to get an expert out on Wednesday 1st June to “call” the hyena to be able to get it recaptured. But the morning before this, we got the sad news that the remaining hyena had also been shot and killed.

The hyenas were illegally shot. Permits are needed to hunt hyena as they are a protected TOPS specie.

Where do we go from here?

We, at the DCP, tried everything we could to save these poor hyenas and are devastated by their loss.

We do not want to leave it at that. We want to continue with our plans and continue with the Spotted Hyena Project in memory of Shenzi, Benzi and Ed as an awareness program, and as ambassadors for this heartbreaking tale.

**Please Donate Here**

Our thanks

Again, thank you to our sponsors. We hope you will continue to support this project and make sure these hyenas did not die in vain. Our gratitude also goes to the Kalahari Game Capture Team and Dr Elmien Kotze for their devotion and relentless searching.

* Kalahari Game Capture Team (also the chopper team)

**Dr Elmien Kotze BVSc, Witelsbos Veterinary Consulting Rooms

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Three Beautiful Spotted Hyenas are about to be “Got Rid Of”

A project similar to ours has been sold. The new owner doesn’t want Shenzi, Banzi and Ed the Hyenas and is planning to “get rid of them”.

Daniell Cheetah Project has a Plan to Save Them

We want to give the Hyenas the chance of life and have received permission from Nature Conservation to relocate them to the Daniell Cheetah Project. However, this is on the condition that we build them a new camp to Nature Conservation Specifications. The cheetah camp we wanted to keep them in until we could fund a proper camp was not up to spec for Spotted Hyenas.

We Need your Help!

The cost of the materials for the fencing and night house/shelter is USD 6,000. If we can raise this amount, we will be able to save the Hyenas’ lives. The labour to build the camp has kindly been sponsored by Francois Erasmus from Constructive Fencing.

If we are lucky enough to raise more than this, we will spend the surplus on enrichment and extras for the Hyenas.

Please Donate

We Need to Move Fast

Our deadline to relocate the Hyenas is 4th June (4 weeks). In this time we need to raise lifesaving funds, have the materials ordered and delivered, and then the enclosure needs to be built.

We – and the Hyenas – are totally reliant on you, our kind DCP supporters to bring this project to life.

Thank you so much for your support.

Richard Daniell
Daniell Cheetah Project

Please Donate

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“My name is Alfons and I am 3 years old. I just stopped using pacifiers and now I want to give them to my favourite animals, the cheetahs!. I hope they will enjoy! Love Alfons”

Our cheetah, Zintle, was very excited to receive the pacifier and wrote back:

“Hi Alfons. My name is Zintle. I’m a bit to old for a pacifier but I will keep it for my future cubs. Hope to meet you soon!”

We love to hear from you and so do the cheetahs so please keep the letter coming in!

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news about new arrivals.  One of our serval females Gypsy, has given birth to a single kitten on the 3rd of November.  She has since doubled in size and is boisterous bundle of joy.  Our second surprise came in the late afternoon on the 5th of November.  Lea our female caracal gave birth to two little kittens, a male and female and needless to say both Lea and male Leo (ambassador caracal from Wild Cats World) are proud parents.  Even though Lea was hand reared her motherly instincts come naturally and she took to the roll of caring for these kittens as nature intended.  She does however allow the handling of these kittens by the staff she knows best.  As she is tame and loving the attention herself it seems like she has accepted the staff as her babysitters.

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Some will remember our bridge as old and unstable. We are glad to let you know that this too has been upgraded and we have beautiful new and steady bridge.  Although this is some old news from the previous year, we are quite happy with outcome.  Even some of our return visitors are happy to be on a new and firm bridge and this all a big thanks to Symba Wildlife Conservation that gave us the opportunity to rebuild the bridge and all the cheetah enclosures at the top part of the project.

As all of our animals are important to us we have installed cameras into the cheetah’s night houses, which enable us to monitor them 25 hours of the day.  This is also a key part when monitoring a female with cubs.  On occasions it has enabled us to witness the actual birth of the cubs.

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