We have two different species of Hyaena resident on Venetia, Brown and the more familiar Spotted varieties. Both have a tendency to mark their territories through the use of middens where they leave their droppings, along the routes they walk. These are very effective message boards where individuals can pick up useful information about who else is busy in the area. These middens or latrines are potentially very useful to us for our census as we are trying to look for a link between the rates of visitation and scat deposition, and population density of the animals in question. Further to this, by collecting samples of fresh scats, we can conduct DNA analysis to get a clear picture of exactly how many Hyaenas are active in the area.
Due to their immensely strong jaws that are capable of crushing bone, and their stomachs of steel, Hyaenas are able to eat pretty much any part of a carcass. In my experience, all that I have seen Brown Hyaenas to leave is horns and teeth, except when they are eating from a warthog carcass when they leave the whole skull. Presumably this bone is just too tough. This high bone content in their diet means that much of their scat is composed of Calcium, meaning that they dry white. These piles of white droppings stand out in the bush and are relatively easy to find. We have just completed taking GPS co-ordinates for all the latrines along our spoor transect routes, and have found that they are spaced quite evenly at roughly 2km apart. Fresh samples are identified as being so by their pale green colour, which dries to white with time.

By looking at the DNA the animals have left behind, and analysing their use of the latrines, we are effectively able to gain valuable information without disturbing the animals themselves at all. We can learn a huge amount without ever even seeing a Hyaena. This is an important point in our critical comparison of census techniques, as the less intrusive we can be, the better.

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