We visited Port Lympne a couple of days ago, and on arrival we mentioned at the main entrance that we were keen of seeing the hyenas- a kind woman working there radioed over to one of their keepers and organised for us to be taken behind the scenes to see the hyenas in their off show exhibit. First we saw a male hyena (the one in the photo) that had a huge off show exhibit next to the Barbary lions and cheetahs in carnivore territory. He was very active and the keeper let us feed him, he was very friendly and let me put my lens through the cage to get a photo of him! Then we went to the neighbouring enclosure, which held a female hyena that was incredibly skittish! She was sleeping, and as soon we approached the cage she ran to the other side. We asked where the other hyenas went off to- she said that the male that used to be seen on the truck drive moved to South Africa, and that the other two went off to other collections, one being Prague. The two hyenas that they have now are kept off show for different reasons- the female is far to scared of people and also they tried the male hyena in an exhibit on the truck drive but he managed to bite the electric fence and injure his jaw so they decided to keep him in his off-show exhibit. The male and female are kept separate because they tried them together previously but apparently they didn’t take to each other. Though the hyena enclosures are off –show, we managed to see the female hyena from the 5-barred gate next to the cheetahs before the tour.
Overall we were really impressed of our visit this time at Port Lympne, we managed to see all the cats including the black footed ones! The keepers were so kind in organising this. I also mentioned to the gorilla keeper that it was a shame that the wild cats were now off show was well, he then radioed over to a keeper at the small cats section and took us off show to see one, behind the lynx and caracal enclosures- he said they also keep them in various other enclosures, one by the new elephant camp.
