I can't find any references to shooting spotted hyenas during the ordinary plains game hunt on most Namibian hunting farms. Are spotted hyenas widely distributed across Namibia, and are they commonly hunted?

Most of Namibia has the Brown Hyena which as far as I know is protected in Namibia. There some Spotted Hyena in the northern areas such as the Caprivi.

John

Stonecreek,

I shot a nice spotted hyena in Namibia last year in the Damarland area. No hyenas on the farm I hunted close to Windhoek.

BigB
http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n107/3122826496/rifles%20web/IMGP2747.jpg

We saw tracks several times while on Erindi, but never an animal. They were supposed to be brown hyena, and were protected. The PH's who were out all the time said they were rarely ever seen.

Brown Hyena are rarely seen, even if they are common in an area. They are typically solitary feeders, nocturnal and not vocal.

They get heavily out competed by spotted where their ranges overlap. As a result, the brown has done better in more arid regions where spotted haven't. Same goes for more agricultural areas where they do better due to their secretive nature.

You can see them in the arid regions at night if you spend enough hours. Some parks/areas with no or few spotted hyena, will often have good populations of brown. They will come when called (have called many inadvertently while calling lion for research) but they don't 'announce' their presence, the slink in right up to you without you even knowing. Not very aggressive at all, down right shy.

I was once taking a vehicle safari at first light with a japanese group....one loped across the road about 50m ahead. I made a death-squeal sound on my hand to see if he would stop for a second to have a look at what was dying, giving my group a photo op....for the next three hours I had to convince my group that they should not squeal at every animal they saw!!!
They belived this to be the 'safari norm'!
My boss stopped a few by bleating like a very distressed sheep as well.

Thanks all. I was aware that the brown hyena is protected. I was just wondering if the spotted hyena was fairly regularly seen in the typical farm hunting and if it was legal game without a specific license. I'll be hunting in the South-Central area a short distance from the Naukaluft mountains.

BigB, Your photo reminds me of why I want to shoot a hyena: Like a feral hog, they just look like they deserve to be killed!