Hyena - Relationships With Humans - Attacks On Humans

Attacks On Humans

Among hyenas, only the spotted and striped hyena have been known to become man-eaters. Hyenas are known to have preyed on humans in prehistory: Human hair has been found in fossilised hyena dung dating back 195,000 to 257,000 years. Some paleontologists believe that competition and predation by cave hyenas in Siberia was a significant factor in delaying human colonization of Alaska. Hyenas may have occasionally stolen human kills, or entered campsites to drag off the young and weak, much like modern spotted hyenas in Africa. The oldest Alaskan human remains coincide with roughly the same time cave hyenas became extinct, leading certain paleontologists to infer that hyena predation was what prevented humans from crossing the Bering strait earlier. Hyenas readily scavenge from human corpses; in Ethiopia, hyenas were reported to feed extensively on the corpses of victims of the 1960 attempted coup and the Red Terror. Hyenas habituated to scavenging on human corpses may develop bold behaviours towards living people; hyena attacks on people in southern Sudan increased during the Second Sudanese Civil War, when human corpses were readily available to them.

Although spotted hyenas do prey on humans in modern times, such incidences are rare. However, according to the SGDRN (Sociedade para a Gestão e Desenvolvimento da Reserva do Niassa Moçambique), attacks on humans by spotted hyenas are likely to be underreported. According to hyena expert Dr. Hans Kruuk, man-eating spotted hyenas tend to be very large specimens: A pair of man-eating hyenas, responsible for killing 27 people in Mlanje, Malawi in 1962, were weighed at 72 kg (159 lb) and 77 kg (170 lb) after being shot. In 1903, Hector Duff wrote of how spotted hyenas in the Mzimba district of Angoniland would wait at dawn outside people's huts and attack them when they opened their doors. Victims of spotted hyenas tend to be women, children and sick or infirm men: Theodore Roosevelt wrote on how in 1908-1909 in Uganda, spotted hyenas regularly killed sufferers of African sleeping sickness as they slept outside in camps. Spotted hyenas are widely feared in Malawi, where they have been known to occasionally attack people at night, particularly during the hot season when people sleep outside. Hyena attacks were widely reported in Malawi's Phalombe plain, to the north of Michesi Mountain. Five deaths were recorded in 1956, five in 1957 and six in 1958. This pattern continued until 1961 when eight people were killed. Attacks occurred most commonly in September, when people slept outdoors, and bush fires made the hunting of wild game difficult for the hyenas. An anecdotal news report from the World Wide Fund for Nature 2004 indicates that 35 people were killed by spotted hyenas in a 12 month period in Mozambique along a 20 km stretch of road near the Tanzanian border.

In ordinary circumstances, striped hyenas are extremely timid around humans, though they may show bold behaviours toward people at night. On rare occasions, striped hyenas have preyed on humans. In the 1880s, a hyena was reported to have attacked humans, especially sleeping children, over a three-year period in the Iğdır Province, with 25 children and 3 adults being wounded in one year. The attacks provoked local authorities into announcing a reward of 100 rubles for every hyena killed. Further attacks were reported later in some parts of Transcaucasia, particularly in 1908. Instances are known in Azerbaijan of striped hyenas killing children sleeping in courtyards during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1942, a sleeping guard was mauled in his hut by a hyena in Golyndzhakh. Cases of children being taken by hyenas by night are known in southeast Turkmenia's Bathyz Nature Reserve. A further attack on a child was reported around Saraghs in 1948. Several attacks have occurred in India; in 1962, nine children were thought to have been taken by hyenas in the town of Bhagalpur in the Bihar State in a six week period and 19 children up to the age of four were killed by hyenas in Karnataka, Bihar in 1974. A consensus on wild animal attacks during a five-year period in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh showed that hyenas had only attacked three people, the lowest figure when compared to deaths caused by wolves, gaur, boar, elephants, tigers, leopards and sloth bears.