Ghosts Of The Great Salt Lake [Brown Hyena Documentary] | Real Wild

in one of the most inhospitable places in Africa one man struggles against the toughest conditions and life-threatening encounters revealing the secret lives of a family of rare brown hyenas [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] maybe not Gilly [Music] the Bushmen called these great expanses Mahadi hadi a place of mirages and salt an accurate description for the remains of a vast lake which formed millions of years ago in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana the lake has since dried up but its imprint in the desert is clearly visible from space the Mahadeshwara pans cover 12,000 square kilometers of land making them the largest salt pans in the world for more than half the year the surface of the pans is a bed of crystallized salt reaching depths of up to 40 metres during this time water is extremely scarce and very hard to find making this an inhospitable landscape for many living things including humans but one man has endured this harshness for the past two years Glynn Maud is a Zambian born researcher conducting the first study ever made on Mahadi Hardy's elusive brown hyenas he started living here as a guide leading groups of adventurers through one of the world's most remote areas my first year in the Mackay dkd I saw brown hyenas once and that was after 11 months I saw tracks I saw scent marks but I never actually saw the animal and at the end of my time as a guide it was just the most obvious step in the world to study the brown hey NAT something I really wanted to do this proved to be a very difficult task first he had to find a suitable study subject and then he had to collar the hyena after a frustrating year he finally collared one a young male which he named Baum a Bushman named bomb is now a two-year-old young adult who wanders the vast desert plains in search of food and water by following BOM Glynn has been unraveling the mysterious life of the brown hyenas for the past year bomb has been returning every few nights to his birthplace leading Glynn to a den site now occupied by the next generation of Cubs his half brothers and sisters and Venus their mother this is the first and only den that Glynn has found and he spends as much time as he can here observing and documenting the family's activities it's remarkable to be able to be out here and to spend so much time with bran he knows considering how rare they are there are probably less than 10,000 brown hyenas in existence which is very low bumm spends more and more time away from the den he's independent now but his younger brothers are still very reliant on their mother especially for food she sleeps most of the day and joins her cubs in the late afternoon [Music] at this young age the Cubs have already learnt the ritual of greeting others they practice with their mother Glynn makes a record of all the behavior he observes on a dictaphone they often greet each other by sniffing the other highness anal pouch scent is very very important in the brown Haina world they very rarely vocalize and the easiest way to communicate with each other is by smell while Venus is out looking for food a task that might take her the whole night and sometimes several days the Cubs remain at the den which is actually a series of abandoned tunnels dug by an ant bear the tunnels provide a safe hiding place for the Cubs big enough for them to squeeze through but too narrow for large predators such as lions there are blind populations in the meketa Kelly the densities aren't high by comparison to non desert ecosystems but the lines are highly unpredictable very aggressive in certain situations when you do come across the lands you can't be certain that they aren't going to charge you that's one of the reasons I have this aluminum cage and amicably Lions like the brown hyenas and black-backed jackals live a difficult life here in the desert where water is so scarce for most of the earth that it's thought that they have to cope by extracting what moisture they can from the food they kill or scavenge for the smaller inhabitants of the salt pans life is a little easier yellow tailed mongooses and ground squirrels easily find juicy grubs and insects which provide all the moisture and nutrition they require meerkats are expert desert dwellers they can survive through the harshest and driest of winters but even for them when the rains come they're welcome in a good year the rains start to fall in November and will continue to fall sporadically till April they bring life to mihari Hadi [Music] within days they're not a river to the northeast of the salt pans swells with enough water to flow all the way to the pans this rich supply spreads over the flat expanse converting the dry salt pans into a shallow inland lake the water transforms the pans into a living jewel attracting thousands of migrant water Birds they will remain here all summer [Music] for the next six months or Fatiha D will be a friendly of activity [Music] while the shallow lake fills with waders the grass Plains teem with thousands of Zeppelin's absolutely fantastic news just sighted the first herd of zebra so the migration is finally back having been gone for six months absolutely brilliant signifies the official start to the wet season all the games back into for the next six months there will be plenty of food for the brown hyenas very little is known about the zebra migration they seem to have the uncanny instinct to coincide their arrival just after the first rains by the time they reach the plains the grass has grown to provide rich summer grazing the birds that will change the hyenas summer living arrived during the night as many as a quarter of a million flamingos make the annual journey to these pans for the brown hyenas the winter famine is over they will scavenge for eggs and chicks at every opportunity in the grass Plains the night creatures emerge the ant bear or art is a very busy animal of the night it digs for most of its needs to look for termites and to build a home it literally peppers the plains with deep wide hole for some animals like the hyenas this animal is their builder they move into the holes vacated by the ant bear BOM sleeps in one of these holes every day emerging at night to search for food brown hyenas are nocturnal which means I've had to learn to also become nocturnal and become active at night while Glynn follows bomb or any other hyena at night he puts a red filter on his spotlight to be less invasive in this sort of ecosystem food is very scarce so they've got to cover big distances looking for food and of course any available water bomb like all other brown hyenas relies more on his sense of smell to find food he can smell carrion several kilometres away in his wanderings through the clan's territory bomb stops to scent mark every few kilometers the scent mark is actually a double paste and it communicates both the individual who made that scent monk food availability in the territory and other more subtle things about the hyena and the area pasting trip odometer 14.5 Lin records precise location points of all pasting x' on a GPS a Global Positioning System but while he's busy with this he often loses BOM who manages to disappear like a ghost in the darkness once Glynn loses sight of bomb it is almost impossible to find him again at night in fact Glynn will be very lucky to find any hyena at night by chance his lights pick up two hyenas mock fighting if the star today follow with mr2 and one of his siblings whom I haven't identified yet has actually just come in and quite interestingly they're actually beginning to play and neck by it quite vividly at the moment there are about 12 months old layer so the neck biting as regard play is probably going to become more serious in the next few months GPS reading is 0.19 Glynn is exceptionally lucky tonight it's not often that he comes across two hyenas interacting mr. cheese just got up and walked away so far that's one hour of nothing but neck biting to become serious fighting at a later age the hyenas separate and Glynn decides to follow mr. too but night follows over grass plains are very difficult although the terrain appears to be flat it is very uneven and peppered with deep holes made by the and bears holes are a very real problem for me I can't blame the aardvark our rocks have to eat but I've probably got the world record for falling down three or four hundred holes every single month or two in the meantime mr. two disappears like a ghost into the night Glynn is now outside his protective cage alone with his back exposed he runs the serious danger of being attacked by lions he has become an expert in pulling his bike out of hold but he still wastes precious time and by the time he's ready to go mr. too is gone for tonight Glynn's research has come to an end he returns to camp to sleep by morning the flooded pans are a flush of pink lesser and greater flamingos come here to breed and Mahadi Hardy caters for both species [Music] greater flamingos use their feet to disturb the tiny brine shrimps that lie in the muddy bottom the smaller lesser flamingos filter the top layer of water for spirulina algae [Music] there is another man with a love for the Mojave honey was doing research he's glynne's good friend Graham McCullough an Irishman studying flamingos to survey where the birds feed and breed who uses a microlight from the air Graham can access the most remote and inaccessible parts of the pans when they're in flat for more detailed work graham goes out in the pans ankle-deep water Graham takes regular scoops on boys to monitor the brine shrimp populations the brine shrimp lay eggs the previous season and these eggs laid dormant on the dry pan for four months on end sometimes even years when the pan floods the eggs hatch out and the brine shrimp emerge and start feeding on algae this is why the flamingos arrive in great numbers and they come to feed on both the algae and the brine shrimp occasionally while out sampling Liam finds the remains of dead foaming goes this one he's sure was eaten by a brown hyena a valuable piece of information which he must pass on to Glynn excellent just I've just been down sampling on the pans and it looks like there's been a lot of grand hyena activity down here okay fantastic that's interesting because I haven't picked a bomb signal for a couple of days so maybe he's up your way okay come by this afternoon many to cover the 120 kilometres east insane has to drive for four hours as soon as they meet up they set out to follow the tracks left by the hyena on a dry portion of the paths Glynn is excited about filling in another piece of the puzzle in the life of his elusive study subject the tracks lead into the grass Plains making it more difficult for the two friends to follow hyenas have been known to carry their food for up to 30 kilometres to a den and although during the day they would not be in any danger of being attacked by lions 30 kilometres on foot in the unforgiving afternoon Desert Sun would be a trying experience for the two men luckily the researchers find the Flamingo carcass only a short distance into the grass plane and down the whole way some fresh tracks back up again and Glynn wonders if one of these hyenas is bomb on the pans the flamingoes have begun their courtship ritual which displays all the discipline of a military parade some have already started to build nests from the fine salty mud of the pans where they will lay no more than two eggs for the next four weeks both parents will incubate the eggs Lynn's attempt at finding BOMs signal near the flamingos carcass failed he returns in two bombs known territory and continues his search I've been able to work out a system whereby he tends to spend his days resting on the edge of the salt pan so I circle probably about 15 kilometres from west to east and in that circuit I did ten tracking stations generally speaking I will then pick him up one of those circuits once more Glynn does not pick up bomb signal he's beginning to worry now and there's still so much water around that he finds it very difficult to travel from one tracking station to another the summer rains keep the pans water at a constant level they replenish the underground water table keeping the desert alive rain or shine Glynn is out in the Mahadi hadi searching for balm brown hyenas can travel up to 70 kilometres in one night and in a month a young male like bomb could have left his home range and traveled far over this vast expanse now littered with varying sizes of pools of water most of these pools are filled with water as salty as the sea undrinkable to almost all creatures but a few of the smaller pools are filled with fresh rainwater these become vital places for the survival of the summer visitors flamingos come here to wash away the salt and mud that collects on their feathers Mahadi Hadi's temporary residents such as the zebras will stay here until the rains stopped and the water has evaporated having had no luck in locating BOM by searching for his signal Glynn keeps going back to BOMs birthplace hoping that he'll return the members of a brown hyena clan have very close social ties although young adults like BOM leave the den to forage for themselves they often come back to their birthplace to socialize with the younger generation and bring scraps of food [Music] [Music] during this time of plenty Venus doesn't need to venture far from the Cubs to find food but even after a short forage the Cubs are weary of an approaching hyena it may not be mum not all adult hyenas will be friendly to the Cubs so the Cubs will always react out of safety first and not really move up to the adult until they know exactly who it is friend or foe [Music] the cub needs to recognize adults clan members later on in life and the best way to do this is at a young age to sniff all the visitors anal patches thus when the covers grown up by smelling scent marks he or she will be able to determine who's been here before him what information they are able to gain is not clear but it is thought they can identify the individual its age and sex and lastly what may have been recently eating ever hopeful Glynn keeps on scanning the area for any signal that bomb could be nearby could something have happened to him whatever the reason for BOMs disappearance Lin's research must go on tonight there is going to be a lunar eclipse and it will be interesting to see if the minute ellipse doesn't any way affect the Bryan heiner's behavior as the night fades over the pans Venus leaves for the nights foraging although the Cubs follow her for a short distance they know they must remain close to the safety of the den and tonight with the total eclipse it's going to be particularly dark Glynn doesn't let Venus out of his sight documenting her every move while the moon's light slowly fades eh I've collected so far indicates that the clan I'm studying actually has a territory of over 700 square kilometers that really was surprising for me when I started to analyze the data because that's a vast area even for brown hyenas [Music] zero one seven is yet another pasting trip odometer thirteen point nine that means in the last twenty minutes the brand has pasted in nine times which is quite remarkable Glynn monitors the eclipse Venus on the other hand appears to ignore it she's obviously more interested in finding food the Lions call puts Venus on the alert they could be anywhere in the darkness enveloping Glynn and Venus she strains her ears for any telltale sounds Glynn scans the area around where he can but the Lions have the uncanny ability to creep up from behind when the lines are ran both the Browns and and myself have to pay attention because lions are obviously quite dangerous the brands are in a situation where lines provide food for them but if they get too close to the line then the line will actually chase and kill but tonight the Lions ignore both Glynn and Venus for them the sudden darkness provided by the Eclipse is a good time to hunt in the stillness of the night the zebras sense the danger is near [Music] [Music] [Music] I didn't see any changes in the Browns behavior with the lunar eclipse but it did seem that the lines took advantage of the Eclipse because they started hunting when the Eclipse was at its peak the night's excitement over and Venus lost into the safety of the summer grasses Glynn returns to Camden the Lions eat till morning once they've digested this meal they will be ready to hunt again an easy task during the summer months when there's an abundance of food around by mid-morning when all his subjects are well hidden in their dens Glynn is hard at work he downloads and studies the GPS data from the nights follow this gives him precise information about the hyenas activities as Glynn logs the drama of the night before a daytime drama is unfolding nearby a zebra foal is trapped in the sticky man left behind by the drying water at a pool [Music] a well-fed lioness approaches the waterhole she's a great opportunist and even if she's not hungry she will not let an easy hunting opportunity go by a zebra foal stuck in such a precarious situation would be a very easy catch [Music] here in the mihari Hadi there's a fine line between life and death a predators reprieve becomes the preys pardon for the lioness killing for food now is not that important there's so much game around at this time of year that the Lions kill more than they can eat leaving half-eaten carcasses in their wake all the more leftovers for the scavengers to feast on for Glynn circling vultures is a sure indication that there's food for the brown hyenas just found a dead zebra on the edge of the salt pan certainly plenty of meat left on the zebra so plenty of food there for the Browns it's still too early in the day for the hyenas to come out of hiding so Glynn prepares for a long wait and once again he tries to locate BOM the first hyena appears before Glynn expected it's Venus she quietly assesses the situation and then rushes in to take ownership of the carcass in a normal situation brands and voters do not compete directly because brand owners are nocturnal and vultures are diurnal there's a very short time in which they overlap basically competing for food the smell of the carcass carries for a long distance over the pans a pungent smell that would make any hyenas mouth water 300 kilograms of dead weight is a little difficult to be moved by a 45 kilogram featherweight like Venus one of her young cubs ventures over the pans this is the farthest he's ever been from his den the cab out on the pan is very confused about what's going on here probably never seen the entire zebra carcass in his life just bits of legs and bits of ribs never the entire thing venus is nervous she knows that a large carcass like this will attract other scavengers for Glynn this is an incredible research opportunity to study the interaction between hyenas at a feeding site and to observe the interaction between hyenas and other scavengers soon a third hyena enters the scene Glynn has met her before he named her Hopalong she's Venus's daughter even so Venus is uneasy pop along is actually BOMs sister and she somehow got injured I haven't worked it out yet but certainly for her having immediate access to such huge quantities of meat is very very lucky having assessed the situation for long enough the cub cannot resist temptation any longer he joins in the feast and Venus returns as well three brown hyenas in situation around a caucus is very unusual so the whole myth about brown Hannah's being solitary dispels instantly you see a scene like that I think Jeff's mill said it better be said with brown hyenas are basically blatantly solitary but secretly social and trying to see the secret assertion of it is very very difficult Glynn ever hopeful checks where the bomb is in the area but his aerial picks up no signal [Music] Glynn remains here all night hoping to see BOM but by morning there's still no sign of him the three hyenas have eaten more than enough even so the cub can't seem to stop the main reason that's that that Brown hyena species as a whole evolved is simply as your modern-day Hoover there's a lot of carrying out there in the bush there's a lot of things that need to be cleaned up recycled and put back into the system if you take away the brown rhino from that then you're gonna have a totally imbalance system it just won't work the whole ecosystem would be affected judgmentally showing typical Brown hyena behavior the cub carries food away to stash for harder times but Glynn is surprised that a cub so young displays such adult behavior the heat of the day bakes the desolate expanse of the Mahadi Hardy and the creatures of the night retire to their secret hiding places [Music] summer is drawing to an end and the rains have already stopped falling many weeks ago the surface water is beginning to dry out the zebras are getting restless they know it's only a matter of time before they need to leave [Music] on the drying pans the flamingos chicks are restless too they congregate in huge nursery groups and wait for their parents to bring backs and food each mouthful will take them one step closer to their departure amazingly each parent is able to identify its young among this teaming from within the next month the chicks have to fledge and learn to fly to be able to follow their parents away from these pans that will soon transform back into an inhospitable waterless wilderness today Glyn can have no rest he needs to restock his supplies which are running low for a man living alone in this desolate landscape this is an essential task nevertheless it is not one that Glinda's with great enthusiasm for him this is precious time spent away from his research it takes him an hour to reach the nearest village where he meets up with Sam the shopkeeper gives him some disturbing news the hyena was killed on the road Glynn is concerned it could be bombed it is very sad to hear that there is a dead browning on the roads I haven't seen BOM for a long time he's a young male and he at that sort of age you would expect him to disperse [Music] it's not bomb just fans a brand it's also got a a wine noose that looks as if the nurses really dug into the muscle the area's become infected hindered the Browns movements and it's been not to have work are very very sad could bomb have suffered a similar fate his lifeless body lying discarded on some forgotten road to nowhere Butlins research must go on he has spent too long searching for bomb he is now forced to collar another subject to do this he needs the professional help of the vet larry patterson to dart an animal by dusk they find a healthy-looking individual but it's very weary and keeps its distance by dark the hyena drops its guard long enough for the vet to get a shot the darting and coloring of a brown Haina is a crucial time and also very nerve-racking time because you only ever really get one chance to get a dart in and if you miss out on that chance you probably won't actually get to call your animal or so you've got to be very careful not to hurt your animal Glynn uses his turban to shield the hyenas eyes from the bright light he needs to use to cover and measure the body this is only the second time that Glynn has been able to be so close to his subject he makes the most of it before fastening the collar Glynn needs to activate the transmitter they need to work quickly now afraid of overdosing the hyena and killing it in the process they drugged it with a light dose of tranquilizer as a result the hyena drifts in and out of consciousness it is a very unique opportunity to actually handle your study animal so as well as putting a collar on you've got to get as much data as is possible in the time allowed the animal will usually come around in about thirty minutes to an hour to some degree so there's a real constraint with time here and you have to take as many scientific data points and measurements as possible they check the pulse one last time Lin names his new subject Jan Kwazii he will leave him alone for the next couple of days to get over the stress of being manhandled and to get used to his collar the last remaining water pools have dried up looks like the zebra migration is heading back to the pathetic signifying the starts of the winter and of course a long dry season lean times for the Browns [Music] as for the flamingos all that's left are their empty nests and the signs in the mud that they were ever here they vanish as quickly as they arrived except for the unfortunate few [Music] despite their departure flamingo research continues through the dry months even in death this flamingo will contribute to Graham's understanding of the Mahadi Hadees system [Music] [Music] winter sets over the endless pans where the desert reclaims its land dust devils rise where water once lay without water Glynn finds it easier to move around the area he drives to a significant point which he marked on his GPS during one of the night's follows one of the things I found was one of the Cubs are actually drinking water I'm gonna go back there today and see exactly what's going on there if indeed he was drinking fresh water that being the case it really does answer the big question how are these things surviving out here considering the lack of other food sources with high water content the GPS marking is so accurate that Glynn finds his mark immediately it is truly a groundbreaking discovery if there's a one hole here there could be hundreds in the maquette ecaddy they can survive over that water we think they've been surviving without water but in actual fact they haven't and what's actually going on here is there's what looks like an aardvark hole accessing the groundwater all mosquito larvae in the water so it's probably quite fresh I'm just gonna test it and see the other water is it's fresh slightly sailing but certainly if I can drink at the Browns and having no problems drinking it this is one of the most important discoveries in his research of the Mahadi ha d hyenas ecstatic with the find Glynn continues his research with renewed enthusiasm he has noticed that Jan Kwazii signal has not moved for 24 hours so he decides to investigate [Music] [Music] I've just found unfortunately and causes color there's blood that's the base of the collar which indicates there's probably died the color is only about 10 or 15 meters off the road at a kilometer from a cattle post so evidence unfortunately points towards him having been shot or traps sadly I'll probably never know what happened to him the morning's scientific discovery is soured a bitter end to an incredible animal to few people understand he feels he needs to do something to redeem Jiang kwazii's untimely death he decides to make one last attempt to find bomb in desperation Glyn calls his closest friend having some problems finding bumper well that would be fantastic game thanks very much so I'll see you later on today then they arranged a rendezvous point where Graham can land as close as possible to bombs old den site a quick turnaround and the two friends set out in search of bomb [Music] an aerial survey allows Glynn to cover a much larger territory in a shorter time if BOM is out there and his collars battery has not run flat Glynn will be able to pick up his signal from a height of 2,000 meters above the ground they start their search over the den site where Venus is sunning preserves [Music] methodically they cover the ground farther and farther away after two hours of flying Glynn is disheartened and ready to give up but Graham keeps going suddenly Glynn picks up a very weak signal they fly towards it over new territory far from Baum's birthplace the signal here is strong but from this height they cannot see Bob Flynn's worst fear is that bomb could be dead as well he takes a rough GPS marker and quickly returns to his bike only from the ground will he be able to find his exact position following the GPS reading Glynn drives into unfamiliar territory his running against time he needs to make visual contact before done otherwise it will be very difficult to find bomb at night [Applause] yes gotcha define bomb just under sunsets 10k south of dead tree island a long long long way away from when I last saw him I put him down as zero-nine-five which is 150 kilometers from my loss vigil of bomb many months ago great great news [Applause] bomb and glim are reunited [Music] [Music] War Powers Glynn is determined not to lose bomb not tonight after so many months of searching he follows bombs wanderings across his new territory from dusk till dawn and then to a new den with a female and four young cubs bombs just taking me to new den sites now looking at three or possibly four cubs looks like the mother stunning to find well my second den side ever and maybe bomb is actually the father of these new Cubs amazing amazing news Glynn like bomb is a wonder or at heart together they are kindred spirits finally reunited to wonder the vast Mahadi hottie for years to come vital player in revealing the secret lives of the brown high of this inhospitable land it has been a difficult year and it's taken me a long time to get to grips with what's happening out here with the brown hyenas with bomb being lost for a long time and John Kaase dying things were going really slowly but finally finding bomb again and also discovering a new den sites it's very exciting and it really does bode well for the future of my study and more importantly the long-term survival of the brown hyenas in the mcalligator region [Music] [Music] maybe not killing

Channel: Real Wild

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Rating: 4.6043477 out of 5

Keywords: nature documentary, full documentary, documentary movie, cute animals, baby animals, animals attack, big cats, wildlife documentary, english, hd, discovery channel, national geographic, natgeo wild, Nature documentaries - topic, Animals - topic, planet earth, david attenborough, Animals Do The Funniest Things, Animals Do The Cutest Things, Cute Baby Animals, Funny, Animal, Video, Funny Baby Animal Video, Full Animal Documentary, brown hyena, hyena documentary

Id: NSmBwIXldpU

Length: 49min 51sec (2991 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 03 2018