13:43, Wednesday, 17 October, 2012

I owe the hyenas for a good deal of my heart health, because they never cease to make me laugh.  Their intelligence is shocking, and I am drawn to the statement written by William Percy:

Partly, no doubt, in revolt against the tendency of nineteenth-century writers to attribute to animals anthropomorphic qualities of intelligence, sentiment, and emotion, the twentieth century has seen the development of a school of thought according to which the springs of animal behavior are to be sought in terms of “conditioned reflexes,” “release mechanisms,” and the rest of a wholly new vocabulary which is regarded as the gateway to a clearer understanding of animal psychology.  To another way of thinking which cannot reconcile that mechanical conception with the diverse character, intelligence, and capabilities exhibited by different individuals of the same species, that gateway to understanding seems as far removed from truth as the anthropomorphism of a previous generation, and more apt to raise a further barrier to a sympathetic understanding of animal behavior than a revelation of it.

Minus word-driven language permitting the abstraction of thought, animals will never be human, but humans cannot be separated from the animal kingdom.  And sometimes the hyenas are just so full of recognizable character that we wouldn’t understand or find funny were we on a separate plane.

Take Rebmann, for example.  Scrabble is sacked out nursing Great Smokey, and Rebmann wants to play.  So she waits until Scrabble is leaned back with her eyes closed, then creeps up and starts to paw at Great Smokey.  Great Smokey ignores her as she sits back in expectation, ears perked forward, waiting for him to respond.  When no response comes, she checks that Scrabble is still oblivious, and starts to paw again.  Great Smokey rolls his eyes upward and momentarily stops nursing.  Scrabble stirs, so Rebmann walks off in feigned innocence.  As soon as Scrabble lies back again, Rebmann creeps in and resumes pawing at Great Smokey.  This time he t2 lunges at her and Scrabble sits up – Rebmann retreats quickly before she can aggress. But sure enough, encouraged by the reward of her potential playmate’s attention – however brief and wanting – Rebmann returns; as soon as things settle, she is right back up there poking the bear, pawing the ground in impatience and sitting back on her haunches with ears perked.  She continued to pester until Great Smokey lunged again. She had us in full giggles, and it was only when Scrabble lost her patience that she gave up her quest for play.

Serena Williams (SWIL) played a similar part a few days later.  Poor girl only wanted to play, but Yummly and Galaxy weren’t having it.  Baba Ganoush would come to the defense of her cubs, t2 lunging Swil away, but as soon as Baba turned her back Swil would be right back up there chewing on the sacked-out cubs’ necks as they tried to rest.  They’d get away from her and go tell mom (walking over where Baba could survey the happenings), and Swil would quickly run in the opposite direction...but only until Baba went back to wandering about, at which point she would sneak-return and pull the reluctant cubs to their feet.  I wished so much that I could morph into a hyena and be the one to play with Swil;  she would have met no such resistance from me!

Unfortunately, the capacity for senseless cruelness seems to positively correlate with intelligence, seen in chimp wars, dolphin rape, and any number of human depravities.  The hyenas can be bullies, too.  The highest ranker, Helios, and her children are ruthless when together.  One morning four of the seven highest rankers, Helios with her daughters Atacama and Amazon and her son Pantanal, walked about bristle-tailed in a shoulder-to-shoulder line formation reeking havoc for no reason.  The hyenas they would approach squealed up a storm, ears pinned back, head-bobbing constantly and crouching to the ground in a submissive posture begging for mercy.  But proper appeasement was ignored; it was a day for instilling rank-reinforcing fear.  The four bullies descended upon Mouse Trap; when her appeasement did no good and they began to chase her, she attempted a hopeless counterattack.  She came out of the clump limping; someone had drawn blood and Helios, Atacama, Amazon, and Pantanal bristle-tail sniffed the spot where it had landed.  (Throughout the morning this conspecific blood drew the immediate attention of newly arriving hyenas, arresting their noses and electrifying their tails.)  When Helios so much as looked at Scamper, he ran off whooping a hurricane until his (presumed, given he’s nursed from two females) mother Alfredo arrived, apparently a smarter tactic than attempting proper appeasement as he was left alone.  Oddish employed a similar tactic upon approach, and Magenta arrived just as her other cub Togepi fell into a squealing submission beneath the gang.  I think Magenta must be paying money under the table to support Helios’s reign, because she was accepted into the gang and aggressive intentions toward her kids all but forgotten.  Magenta is well in the upper half of the ranking order, but she’s certainly not high enough to where one would think she should be allowed to join the likes of this crowd.  But for whatever reason, there she was, and she played a part in making polite good ole Mork bleed when he dared to walk within fifteen meters of the dictator.  Foxtrot was thrown into a carpal crawling crouch by the newly-numbered five.  Then came Burger, an interesting case.  Burger was not bothered much, which is curious because she displayed the most peculiar possession of a notion that she should be included in this gang.  She ran bristle-tail about after Helios, Atacama, Amazon, Pantanal, and Magenta wherever they went, attempting to join in on their coalition aggressions.  A fit-thrower anyway, able to raise an absolute ruckus over the most indiscrete sideways glance, Burger SCREAMED whenever one of the others showed disapproval at her odd boldness by t1 pointing or t2 chasing.  But she was not deterred and kept returning, until only Magenta seemed bothered and continued to periodically give her chase.  And who could argue with the abandonment of discipline given the utter headache of a tantrum that would result?

So is the ever-complex world of the hyena; but where there is ugliness, I find there is always beauty to favorably tip the scale.  I can only describe Oakland’s pure devotion to Hendrix as beautiful.  Wherever Hendrix is, there too shall Oakland be.  We never see her without him, and I’m beginning to think his attachment to her could rival the legendary attachment of Fozzy to Murphy (two previous hyenas whose story is often told among fisi campers).  When Mork tried to approach and greet Hendrix, Oakland quickly asked him with a t1 point to move away, to which Mork hastily obliged.  Everyone seems to understand that Hendrix is his.  The best part is that Hendrix is neither high-ranking nor pretty; her faded spots and hefty nature might be said to leave something to be desired.  But not to Oakland.  And I have never witnessed a female so constantly tolerant of a male.  I don’t know as I have ever seen Hendrix aggress on Oakland, and I would wager a bet that she returns his affections as far as hyena affections can go.  Her children, Bata and All Star, were even seen playing with Oakland!  As far as I know, males are not regularly playmates of cubs, and cubs normally seem to regard contact with them as an opportunity to practice exerting dominance.  Even Hendrix’s kids seem to love him.  It’s as though they’re a little family!  (And who knows; maybe Oakland is actually their father.)  Another story of hyena devotion; I mentioned Santiago rescuing Lu from the baiting in Fig Tree during August.  I was told he saved her, and felt somewhat doubtful, thinking that maybe he timidly tried and the males kind of backed off.  But we were logging videos a couple days ago, and I came upon the video of the baiting in question.  Curious, I took a minute to watch it.  Amazing.  Rescue, save, what have you are not exaggerations; three males were beating up on her, rushing in and nipping at her as she squealed in vain.  About three minutes in, and here comes Santiago, soaring in from the side out of nowhere, and chases these three  males all at once.  Perhaps they could feel the intensity of his intention, because they didn’t even put up a fight and immediately flew away. Santiago stayed by Lu’s side afterward, and she needn’t have worried for even a moment about those males returning. 

Then of course there was the inseparable Echo and Foxtrot, and now there is the inseparable Hydrogen and Helium.  Sauer’s tenderness toward her cubs – most all hyena mothers, in fact, though their styles are variable, sacrifice unceasingly for their cubs.  Harpy was grooming Magenta this morning for no apparent reason; they are not of close relation, and Magenta is lower-ranking than her.  It’s the age-old mystery that evolutionary biology fails to solve; although it may try, I find the formulas for altruism to be a piece of too-small syran wrap that can’t quite fit over the dish of what it’s trying to cover.

I have so many good stories about the other animals that have been around camp, etc., but they are going to have to wait.  Although I could probably write forever (minus the muscles in my eyes going berserk from staring at a computer screen), there are other things to be attended to!