They came from South Africa. From the description on a Youtube video posted by the zoo in March 2014 (titled "Fort Worth Zoo Debuts Striped Hyenas"): "Three striped hyenas -- one male and two females -- have arrived at the Fort Worth Zoo from a managed wildlife facility in South Africa. The hyenas are about 3 years old and will be on exhibit in Asian Falls next to the Malayan tigers."
@Chlidonias Interesting. Of course Striped Hyenas aren't native to South Africa so it doesn't clear things up too much but still good to know. Thank you!
@Ggrarl just because an animal is located in a certain geographic exhibit does not make them the subspecies from that region. Amur Leopards being displayed in African exhibits is a good example.
@Chlidonias I had to double-check it myself There are two African subspecies in East and North Africa respectively. I'll try to look into it more tomorrow but it's a shame they don't give an actual name for the facility.
I expect it is one of the (literally) hundreds of private breeding ranches in South Africa. Hence the vague term "managed wildlife facility" instead of "zoo". So I think finding anything via Google would be difficult-to-impossible.
@ThylacineAlive I do not know for sure but I don't think there's any Barbary striped hyena in captivity (at least not outside its range). It's a very rare subspecies in the wild and importing them would be hard enough (there could be some remnants of an old import but I find it unlikely).
If this hyena is one of the African taxa, I'd bet it's either a Sudanese (East African) hyena (Hyaena hyaena dubbah) or a non-subspecific one.
@ThylacineAlive Yeah, probably. Haven't encountered one yet but I'm sure some smaller zoos which rely on captures and/or rescue centers (although those are rare where I live ) might have some.
