In order to reduce risks, opportunistic predators like hyenas, lions, and leopards frequently seek young or damaged prey.
In a short clip shared, the hyena can be seen without hesitation, choosing a baby antelope just a few weeks old to attack.
The animal had just learned to move, and could not yet accelerate to run away. Apparently, it could not cope and survive against ferocious enemies. Understanding this, the father and mother antelope have made great efforts to protect their children.
They take turns gaining momentum, speeding up, directing their sharp horns towards the animal, in order to seriously injure the hyena or at least distract the enemy from the prey. However, the hyenas show incredible flexibility, when at the same time dodging attacks from the pair of antelopes, while keeping their prey in check.
Wounded from multiple bites, the baby antelope quickly lost its strength and died as prey for the hyena. Witnessing the sad ending, the father and mother antelope did not dare to continue to risk their lives, but just turned around and left.
The hyena is the most common carnivore in Africa. There are four species of hyena: brown, spotted, striped and the lesser known wolf hyena. While the spotted hyena is the largest species, all hyena species have large heads, strong jaws and long forelimbs.
As sharp and cunning predators, this animal mainly follows lions, leopards…, and then takes their food to survive. In the above encounters, hyenas are rarely killed because of their reckless nature, sharp teeth and overwhelming opponents in numbers.
In addition, hyenas also have some special abilities such as tracking and using scavengers like vultures to locate successful hunts.
However, the clip above also shows that when needed, hyenas can completely hunt alone extremely effectively without having to rely on the strength of the herd, or their “hunting” habits. They are said to be able to run at a speed of 60 km/h, and knock out large animals such as buffalo and giraffes.
Source: https://newonlinenews.com
