Hyena trapped in sewer pipe in the middle of town. Copy of report to parks copied below
On September 23 I received a call from a private citizen to come in to town as there was a big commotion concerning a hyena. On arrival at scene I found at least 300 locals standing around all making a lot of noise and excitement.
Ace appeared to be in control. There was a hyena in the drainage pipe across from Marina lodge. There were many wildlife officers on scene many of them carrying weapons. I saw at least 4. They had blocked off one end of the pipe with a cage to attempt to capture hyena. The other side of the pipe was unguarded and all the observers were standing around on that side. In the event that the hyena would have come out the open end someone would have been severely injured as the animal had no route of escape. Apparently the officers had thrown a number of thunder flash explosives into the pipe to try and chase the animal into the cage at the other end. I was not present for this but I was told they had thrown over 20 explosives in there.
In a situation like this if one or 2 explosions don’t work it’s not going to and a different approach should be used. I went to my vehicle to retrieve a flashlight to see hyena and in that period of time all wildlife officers had disappeared off scene.
I was never called for assistance or informed that they were going to leave.
I went immediately to Dr Masunga office to find out what was happening. He had just come in from the park and was not aware this was going on but informed me that he had received a call from the Director in Gaborone that someone had complained and the issue was been dealt with unprofessionally. When I saw Ace later he said that they would handle the situation before calling me. The next morning Ace called me and said it was ok to dart the animal.
I arrived on scene used a torch to locate the hyena. I darted it with a tranquilizer. After 5 minutes I crawled into the drain pipe and retrieved the sedated hyena. I had them load it in the back of the land cruiser and removed it off scene to the headquarters. The entire procedure took less than 20 minutes and there were minimal observers.
On examination of hyena at headquarters. It had both back legs broken below the hock and the wounds were extremely infected. It also had a broken right fore shoulder. I assume it was run over by a car. It had been in agony for a few days at least. My concern in a situation like this is if the animal was not severely wounded and was able to walk it would have come out of the drain pipe and hurt someone the day before.
In veterinary issues such as this I should be called out first.
