Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Surviving off the coast in the oldest desert

on the planet is a rare beast.

Join the quest to find one of its more elusive members.

They are not a mirage.

And while local wildlife fears them.

One scientist tracks down these scavengers...

...to unlock the secrets of their existence.

How they live.

How they hunt.

And how they adapt as the world changes around them.

The key lies with a den mother named Tosca...

...and German scientist Ingrid Wiesel stops at nothing

to find her on - Hyena Coast.

This is the Atlantic coast of Namibia.

Here, an arid desert meets with powerful ocean winds,

making some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

Dubbed The gates of Hell by European sailors...

...and the land God made in anger, by resident Bushmen.

Shipwrecks are proof of the raw power in this deadly habitat.

It's in this ferocious landscape the brown hyena reigns.

The seal colonies hugging the shoreline

are its hunting ground.

Hundreds of thousands of Cape fur seals call this home.

But living here has a steep price.

The cost is sacrifice.

Paid in full to the brown hyena.

German scientist Ingrid Wiesel keeps record.

It's her life's quest to study the brown hyena...

...otherwise known as the strand wolf.

Ingrid: I'm trying to locate one of my female hyenas.

Her name is Tosca.

I haven't received her signal for a long time.

And so I'm a little bit worried and I'm not really sure

what happened to her.

She's the main breeding female of one of the clans that

I'm studying so finding her is really important to me.

NARRATOR: Ingrid discovered Tosca when she was 4 months old

...and watched as she became the leader of her clan.

Ingrid: Tosca is an extremely important hyena to me.

I've known her for many years but I've also known her mother.

I've known her grandmother.

She is basically the third generation of hyenas

of the group that I started studying when I arrived here

17 years ago.

NARRATOR: The Namib is the world's oldest desert stretching

the entire coast of Namibia and is home to Ingrid's study.

She works out of Luderitz, an old diamond mining town.

A remote city off the South Atlantic coast,

Luderitz is exposed to powerful sea winds that cut through

buildings and boats on its way to the desert on the other side.

Ingrid's study will prove a challenge.

Harsh desert conditions are just the start.

The brown hyena is a desert phantom,

but finding one strengthens her resolve.

Ingrid: The first brown hyena I saw and laid eyes on

in this area, I was in love with them.

They were so beautiful and not what I expected.

NARRATOR: The first hyena family she studies is Tosca's.

Ingrid: I followed the movements of her mother and grandmother

and I could see how she inherited all this ancient

knowledge that the other two hyenas also inherited.

And she really became part of my life and part of my family too,

which makes it just a special connection that I have.

NARRATOR: Brown hyenas can travel 55 miles in one trip,

making them difficult to track.

Finding Tosca will prove difficult.

Ingrid uses modern technology to follow every step.

Tosca and other breeding females wear GPS collars.

Ingrid: These collars emit a VHF signal so I can actually track

the animal that is wearing the collar.

NARRATOR: The collar records specific data

of the hyena's movements.

But Ingrid needs to be within radio contact to download

this essential information.

Ingrid: Yeah one can actually find out a lot about

the animal's life and the animal's activity and behavior

just by having these collars fitted.

I don't even have to see the animal,

I don't have to get close to it.

It's all done remotely.

And the beauty is that we can drop the collar off

when the battery expires so the animal won't have the collar on

for the rest of its life.

It's just for a couple of years.

NARRATOR: Seventeen years of study and now Ingrid

is the world expert on brown hyenas.

Hyena Lady is what the locals call her.

Her research shapes our understanding

of these elusive beasts.

Collar data shows Ingrid's hyenas depend

on a healthy seal population.

Her search starts there.

Originally thought to only scavenge on seal carcasses,

Ingrid discovers these animals are true hunters.

Ingrid: It's quite amazing what's happening there.

NARRATOR: They stalk the coastline for seal pups,

an important part of their diet.

Ingrid keeps her focus on the science with an empathetic eye.

Ingrid: When you are at the seal colony you've got thousands

of seal pups there so you don't really bond

with one of the seal pup.

It's like a prey item.

NARRATOR: It only takes one bite for the hyena to crush

the pup's skull, killing it instantly.

Ingrid: If you study a carnivore you have to deal with death

I mean they have to feed they have to feed their young,

that's just life.

NARRATOR: Ingrid also discovers these coastal hyenas are active

in the day, contrary to their nocturnal inland cousins.

And she also suspects brown hyenas are able to sniff out

seal pups that have recently suckled,

making for a rich and fatty meal,

sometimes pumping milk from the baby with its paws.

Ingrid watches on but no sign of Tosca.

Mothers carry some of their kills to their dens,

sometimes as far as 12 miles away.

The secluded valleys where the dens sit are important

to Ingrid's work.

It's a meeting place for the clan.

It's here where Ingrid hopes to see her favorite subject, Tosca.

Ingrid: It's actually females that are my favorite animals

because that's' the ones you observe with the cubs at the den

the most so obviously they grow to your heart and you see

how much they have to work to raise the cubs.

NARRATOR: Typical dens average 4 adults,

who bring back food for the cubs.

Could this one have brought food back for Tosca?

Black backed jackals' squat at this hyena den aiming

to find an easy meal.

Brown Hyena dens are located in secluded areas to offer cubs

protection from the harsh world around them.

Cubs live here until they're 15 months old.

German Scientist Ingrid Weisel hopes the subject of her study,

Tosca is among them.

But she is nowhere to be found.

Ingrid continues her search at other known den sites.

Ingrid: I haven't seen her for weeks and I was just hoping

by having a look at all the den sites that I know

that she's used in the past that I could find her and see

what she's doing - whether she's breeding or whether she's OK.

NARRATOR: Each den she checks is empty.

Bones litter the ground and prove this to be a busy den.

But these bones are old.

Ingrid: When her Mom died, Tosca became the main breeding female

of that hyena clan.

And, you know these females are extremely important to clan

structure because it's usually only one female in a group

that has got cubs.

So for the whole dynamics of the clan she is important.

NARRATOR: Ingrid searches all known den sites.

No Tosca.

Her clan has abandoned their home range,

begging the question: why?

Ingrid: Tosca is a really special hyena to me.

I got this special bond to her and although I know she doesn't

really have a bond to me, quite naturally,

she probably would rather be left alone.

But I know, I hope, or I believe that she would recognize me

and that she actually know who I am.

And whatever I am doing here is actually for the greater good

of these animals to survive in this area.

NARRATOR: Ingrid grinds on, trying to answer

where Tosca's clan has gone, and why they left.

What do these great survivors know that she does not?

A new threat to hyena survival may be why Tosca has left.

Ingrid is determined to learn why.

She travels to beaches of Van Reenan Bay,

where Tosca has been known to hunt.

Several seal rookeries scatter along the shoreline.

Ingrid treks to her observation post at the top of the cliffs

north of the beach.

She finds only jackals.

Ingrid: There's quite a lot of jackals there today.

NARRATOR: Seal carcasses are plucked to fill their bellies.

There are fewer seals this year...

...and the jackals grow desperate.

A few try to take down a large seal pup.

The pup remains close to its mother,

though the jackals try to split them.

They succeed.

The pup runs to the water for protection.

He's lucky.

Down the beach another pup is under attack.

He's outnumbered.

One jackal bites the throat.

The others tear at its body.

The four jackals have won.

Others try to claim their prize.

The smell of death draws more hungry jackals and creates

a feeding frenzy.

Ingrid: Quite amazing.

A huge group of jackals just ripping this pup apart.

Really amazing how efficient they are with these hunting

strategies.

They've got these groups that form and they cooperate

so brilliantly.

They are true survivors these jackals.

NARRATOR: There are dozens of jackals but no hyenas.

No Tosca.

Ingrid's quest continues.

60 miles south of Luderitz sits Bakers Bay.

A large seal colony lives here, and this is where Ingrid goes

next to find Tosca.

More than twenty thousand seals are found here

during summer breeding.

It's a perfect hyena hunting ground.

Ingrid catches sight of an injured hyena in the distance.

Ingrid: Oh my god, this is amazing.

This is a very old friend of mine.

I can't believe this but it's a hyena called Halenge.

It's a hyena I collared many many years ago.

He's the first hyena I ever collared with a GPS collar.

And he must be - I must think a bit - I think he's about

14 to 16 years old.

So I really didn't expect to see him here at the seal colony.

Well he looks in a pretty good shape for his age.

But he's limping quite badly.

It's not really unusual because a lot of hyenas

do injure themselves here.

They fall, they slip on the rocks.

But obviously, you know, there's quite a lot of competition

between hyenas at the seal colonies,

so they also fight a lot.

He might have got his injury from a fight with another hyena

He's out there at the colony maybe to kill seals.

NARRATOR: Halenge's first attempt to catch a young seal

is clumsy.

Its mother tries her best to protect her young.

With good result.

This pup got away.

Will Halenge find another?

At Bakers Bay, Halenge, the first hyena Ingrid tagged,

is on the hunt for food.

Ingrid: And there he goes... here we go.

NARRATOR: Halenge proves he's a survivor.

Ingrid: Wow, he still knows how to hunt. This is incredible.

NARRATOR: Few predators kill prey as fast as the brown hyena.

Ingrid: What a successful hyena to survive in the wild

for all these years.

It's amazing.

NARRATOR: Halenge takes aim on a second pup.

Death comes with one bite.

Halenge is on a killing spree.

Ingrid has seen this before.

The average is 3 pups, but some will take 10 or more.

Ingrid believes one hyena may have taken close to 100.

Since the prey is abundant, the hyena's hunting instinct

stays at peak.

Ingrid calls this an over-stimulus situation.

Baker's Bay remains a hotspot for hyenas,

but there's no sign of Tosca.

Ingrid thinks the falling seal population may be the cause.

Ingrid: Over the past ten years I've been seeing that

the population size of the seal colonies has been decreasing.

The hyenas might have to go further inland to find enough

food for their survival.

NARRATOR: Could Tosca be inland?

Tosca may be with another of Ingrid's collared females,

named Obelixa...

...so she drives south across the desert,

to the ghost town of Elizabeth Bay.

Ingrid: I haven't received her signal for quite a long time now

so I am a little bit worried what's happened to her.

And I want to see if I can find her today just to see whether

she is all right and just to see if the collar is still working.

NARRATOR: Abandoned in 1948, Elizabeth Bay is a shadow

of its former self.

Ingrid: It's absolutely amazing to think that a hundred years

ago people were living here and now suddenly the hyenas have

made the houses their home and nature has taken over this place

again in a quite unique way.

NARRATOR: Colonial Germans built the town in 1908.

Forty years later the desert began to tear it down.

The unrelenting wind erodes every brick and stone.

Making way for its new residents, brown hyenas.

Obelixa could be anywhere.

Worse, she knows each nook and cranny of these buildings.

Ingrid: Olbixas' signal now. Um.

It's very very difficult to judge the direction

of the signal with being between all these buildings,

so it bounces off all the walls

And I know that Oblixa has quite a few resting sites inside

these buildings so just in case if she's inside there

that we are not standing right in front of her and she hasn't

got any way out and you know we put ourselves in danger.

Yeah, it sounds as if it's actually coming

from inside there.

NARRATOR: Ingrid bottles her fear in hopes Obelixa

can provide clues to find Tosca.

Ingrid: I can get a signal from everywhere but Oblixa likes

to rest in these rooms so I know of a very very nice resting site

here and I just want to see if she's actually in there.

So. ...No.

See, this is the resting site over there,

and you can still see all her footprints,

they're relatively fresh.

So maybe she's been here yesterday.

OK will just have a look in the other houses,

see if we can find her.

There she is, there she is!

She just came out there.

She's walking around the building there.

There she goes.

She's doesn't look bad.

NARRATOR: Obelixa is here.

Tosca is not.

Ingrid: I can't get a good enough view on Obilxia now

to really judge her condition but what's key to me is that

the collar is not working properly.

.. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to try to capture her

to replace the collar.

NARRATOR: The data in Obelixa's broken collar may hold the key

to finding Tosca.

Elizabeth Bay as Ingrid preps to retrieve

a collar on a rogue brown hyena named Obelixa.

Hatrmut Winterbach, a wildlife vet, joins her.

He readies a tranquilizer dart to knock Obelixa out to swap

the old collar for a new one.

Hartmut and Ingrid have done this before.

They use the cover of darkness to take the shot.

Ingrid: Brown hyenas are very shy animals.

We can't use any white light as we we'll disturb them,

so we have to make use of technologies such as infrared

technologies and night vision to be able to observe them.

NARRATOR: The bait sits for several cold hours,

when Ingrid finally sees something.

Ingrid: There's a hyena, but it is a cub.

It's quite small I think, I would think

it's about 9 months old.

It could be one of Obilixa's cubs, that's amazing.

There are 2 hyenas at the bait.

There, there I think that's Obilixa.

Yeah I can see the collar.

It's Oblixa.

She's chasing the jackal from the bait.

Oh fantastic.

We have to be very very quiet now not to disturb her.

NARRATOR: Hartmut takes aim and shoots.

Obelixa doesn't make it too far before she falls victim

to the drug.

She is asleep within ten minutes.

Ingrid and Hartmut have little time to act.

Ingrid: We have to be extremely quiet because the animal can

still hear everything that is going on around it.

But it can't react to it so it will get quite nervous and upset

NARRATOR: Ingrid replaces the collar...

...while Hartmut conducts a full examination.

Ingrid uses tissue samples to track Obelixa's health.

Information essential to her work.

They inject the antidote.

In just a few minutes Obelixa will wake.

Ingrid: The animals actually suffer from some sort of amnesia

from the drugs which works in our favour because

they often don't seem to remember

what is actually happened to them.

NARRATOR: At first, she's unsteady,

but within the hour she'll be fine.

In the morning, Obelixa roams her streets without reservation.

Elizabeth Bay is her home and the darting won't scare her away

Her bond to this town makes it unlikely Tosca would be here.

Now, Ingrid takes to the sky to continue the search.

From here, Ingrid studies the vast coastline her brown hyenas

claim as their own.

Ingrid shifts the search to the Atlas Bay,

just south of Luderitz, where she knows of a large seal colony

Ingrid: I think I hear a very faint signal now.

Oh that's brilliant, OK.

NARRATOR: She's found Tosca's signal.

Ingrid: I got a very faint signal of Tosca close to

Atlas Bay so I really want to take the opportunity and go

into that area and see if I can get a signal from the ground.

NARRATOR: Ingrid heads to an old unused den in the hills

near Atlas Bay.

Ingrid: I just don't have any idea which hyenas could be here.

It could be Tosca which would be amazing.

NARRATOR: Ingrid watches for Tosca

as night settles over the den.

Ingrid: Well there are some hyenas that have arrived.

It is very difficult to see now but looks as if there are

2 sub-adults and there is definitely one adult around

there but I can't see who it is.

You know. The only thing I could do is I, I have to set up

a camera trap close to the den to actually get images

of these hyenas to be able to identify them.

But it's fantastic that the den is active

NARRATOR: It's morning on the Namibian coast

and German scientist Ingrid Weisel sets up a remote camera

to learn more about a den of hyenas.

Ingrid: So the way these camera traps work is that

they've got an infrared sensor which emits a beam,

and if an animal walks through this beam and the beam is broken

then the camera automatically takes a photograph.

We've basically set this camera trap now to record videos

so I'm going to leave that here overnight

and I'll check tomorrow morning.

[Telephone ring]

Ingrid: Hello ... Ach, no, not another one.

I got a phone call this morning that somebody found a dead brown

hyena on the road and from the area where he described he found

this hyena it could actually be that it is Tosca.

So I'm really worried that we've got bad news.

Oh there I can see the hyena.

It's on the side of the road.

NARRATOR: There is no collar on the hyena.

Has Tosca removed hers?

Ingrid: So it could be Tosca.

So the first thing I do is to just quickly check

whether it is a male or female.

And it's a male, so it cannot be Tosca which is really good.

It might sound a bit stupid but I'm always relieved

when you know it isn't a male,

as bad as it is to have a road kill.

But if it's a female there's always the chance that

this animal was lactating and that basically then the cubs are

without a mum and might not make it.

Or even if the animal was pregnant.

These hyenas they've already got such a tough life out here

in the desert trying to survive,

finding enough food, raising their cubs

and its always so sad to see that actually you know still

the humans are the biggest threat to even these elusive

animals that live in such a like pristine area.

NARRATOR: Now, Ingrid is eager to see if her camera

in Atlas Bay has better news.

Ingrid: I'm really excited to see what's on these photos

I hope I can ID some of the animals,

so we should be able to see - Oh no!

The hyenas managed again to get the equipment out

despite all my efforts

so well I guess I have to just find the bits and pieces

and hope that the memory card is still somewhere

and that I can still recovered some of the photos

and see the culprits.

So we've got the back here.

There are some more pieces

Oh ya I can see it... Oh God that's good

at least well - it still looks and I hope we can still

use it.

It is pretty dirty but well the camera trap is beyond repair

that's for sure.

NARRATOR: The camera is destroyed,

but Ingrid's determination never wavers.

Ingrid: I'm just going to open a couple and see whether we've got

hyenas on there.

(Laughs)

There's a porcupine, so this porcupine just came out of

the one entrance there.

There's an animal coming what is this?

Oh no it's a jackal.

Shame I thought maybe it's the mother.

Let's open another one, have a look what's on there.

Oh, this is the one that ate my camera trap.

It just grabbed a piece, and I see it walking off with it.

And I can't really make out any identification,

there we go and he's coming back, and that's it.

I think that this is when the camera trap was destroyed.

Well we know the animals are there but basically I am going

to go back and set up another camera trap at this time.

I'll make another plan and I'll try to set it up in a way

that it can't destroy it at all.

But this is really good news, I'm so excited.

NARRATOR: Ingrid goes home and returns with sturdier equipment.

Ingrid: I'm right at the den now and the entrance is just

a couple of meters away from me, and now I've just put it very

high up so the animals actually can't reach it from the ground.

And I hope this one is going to work now.

NARRATOR: Ingrid now waits to see if her quest for Tosca

is over.

As Ingrid waits to see if her remote camera catches

the main subject of her brown hyena study...

...she aims to answer another burning question.

Why has Tosca's clan abandoned their home?

The answer may be in the seal colony they used to prey upon.

Ingrid: On this beach, you usually find marine carry on

went washed up.

And I just want to see -Oh!

This is - this is weird.

God I haven't seen this before.

I'm quite concerned.

There are actually hundreds of dead seals on this beach.

This is incredible... this...

You know usually seal pups die within the first month

of being born.

That's when we find most mortality.

But now the pups are four or five months old.

They shouldn't actually die in these numbers.

NARRATOR: Massive seal mortalities like this may be

the reason Tosca moved her clan.

Rotting seal carcasses would only provide food

for a short time.

Tosca may have moved, in order to keep her clan alive

Ingrid: I'll just take some samples and I'll talk

to the marine biologist today.

And we'll see if we can find out what this caused.

NARRATOR: By the time Ingrid gets back to Luderitz

she has a possible answer...

Ingrid: The marine biologists here in Namibia,

they're talking about a neurotoxin called Domoic acid

which is produced by algaes.

NARRATOR: Domoic acid attacks the brains of mammals

and has been known to kill.

It comes from the algae blooms like Red tide.

Outbreaks can occur when cold ocean waters warm.

Ingrid: I just think the marine biologists may be right.

And that we've got a problem at hand here.

NARRATOR: Warmer ocean waters support fewer fish.

Fewer fish mean fewer seals.

And fewer seals mean less food for Namibia's coastal hyenas.

Ingrid treks back to Atlas Bay to see if Tosca has fallen

victim to the food shortage.

The camera is unharmed and Ingrid is eager to reveal

the findings.

Ingrid: Looks like it has been going on and off the whole night

so this is really exciting.

Those are the 2 sub-adults.

Just in front of the entrance.

Lots of jackals Four jackals chasing each other,

ummm, going to the den entrance.

No there is nothing on there it's so often the case...

There is an adult - oh my god!

This is unbelievable - she's got a collar - so I think,

oh yeah - I can see her clearly in the next video...

that's Tosca

...I can't believe it, she is there...

Oh God, it's like. It's so amazing to see her again.

Now she is digging at the entrance.

Maybe she is planning to use it or just opening

the entrance wider

Oh no there is a tiny little cub coming out!

This is unbelievable...

and a second one.

And it looks - They are hers. I mean, this is incredible

they go straight to Tosca.

Agh they are about probably three months old.

They're not older than three months. They are tiny.

Oh, this is amazing, she is lying down,

she is probably going to,

they're probably going to nurse just now.

Yeah, she is lifting her leg and you can see there are two cubs.

The one cub is already nursing but the other one

is still investigating and...

It could actually be one of first times they've coming out

of the den.

Because brown hyenas use natal dens which are relatively small

and the cubs stay inside so the mom basically

just goes to the den, nurses them, but they don't come out.

And then only later she moves them to a communal den

where they start coming out and socializing

with the all the other animals.

NARRATOR: Ingrid's quest to find Tosca is over,

but Tosca's journey is just beginning.

Ingrid: This is great, this is better than I ever hoped for

finding her and her small little cubs.

NARRATOR: Two months pass and Tosca's cubs continue to grow.

Now more confident, they play in the day.

Their mother ever tender.

Tosca remains Ingrid's favorite.

It's why she worked so hard to find her.

But now it's time for Ingrid to let Tosca go.

Ingrid: Tosca's collar's life is coming to an end.

So I decided before I'm losing her and maybe the collar again

I decided to actually drop the collar of

and retrieve all the data.

So on one side as a scientist I am really happy to retrieve

all the data today and to be able to see

what she has been up to for the past year,

but on the other hand I am really sad because it means...

I have to let go.

I have to say goodbye to Tosca ...who you know I have followed

for such a long time.

So I feel a little bit like I am losing a friend.

NARRATOR: Ingrid's study of the brown hyena

will not end with Tosca

the strand wolf survivor.