Climatic conditions, shifts in livestock grazing, and human activities in the region may have contributed to a doomed journey.
A spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) has been spotted in southeastern Egypt for the first time in thousands of years, marking a significant event in the region’s wildlife history.
According to a study published in Mammalia by De Gruyter, the hyena was a lone individual and was captured and killed by locals approximately 30 kilometers from the Sudanese border.
“My first reaction was disbelief until I checked the photos and videos of the remains,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Adbullah Nagy from Al-Azhar University, Egypt. “Seeing the evidence, I was completely taken aback. It was beyond anything we had expected to find in Egypt.”
Hyena Sighted Far from Known Range
The sighting took place some 500km north of the known range of spotted hyenas in neighboring Sudan. The researchers theorized that a regional, decadal weather cycle, part of the Active Red Sea Trough phenomenon, could have resulted in increased rainfall and plant growth, opening up a migration corridor for the hyena where better grazing opportunities supported sufficient prey.
To test this idea, they used a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a measure of precipitation and corresponding pastoral grazing opportunity, with NDVI values obtained from Landsat 5 and 7 satellite images between 1984 and 2022. Analysis revealed multi-year droughts with shorter relatively wet periods. The last five years had higher NVDI values than the previous two decades, suggesting increased plant growth could support prey for a curious spotted hyena on the move.
“The fact that the corridor area has become less environmentally harsh, offering easier passage along ‘the highway’, may explain how the hyena reached this far north,” says Nagy. “However, the motivation for its extensive journey into Egypt is still a mystery that demands further research.”
Spotted hyenas are successful pack predators, usually found in a variety of habitats in sub-Saharan Africa. They can travel up to 27km in a day, shadowing semi-nomadic, human-managed livestock migrations and subsisting on occasional kills.
Incident in Wadi Yahmib
The individual described in this study killed two goats herded by people in Wadi Yahmib in the Elba Protected Area, and was subsequently tracked, spotted, chased, and killed in late February 2024. The kill was photographed and geolocated, giving animal ecologists the opportunity to follow up on the sighting.
The study’s findings force a rethink of the agreed distribution of spotted hyenas and add to the available data on how regional climate change can affect animal migration.
Reference: “First record of the spotted hyena Crocuta crocuta in Egypt during the past 5,000 years” by Abdullah Nagy, Said El-Kholy, Alaaeldin Soultan and Omar Attum, 15 November 2024, Mammalia.
DOI: 10.1515/mammalia-2024-0031
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