Easter bunny becomes the hunted in Kruger

Ricci Goldstein and his wife Sharna had the right-time, right-place opportunity this past weekend to witness hyenas hunt down a scrub hare in the middle of the road.

Ricci said they visit the park at least twice a year, and “It’s no secret that my wife and I love the Kruger with a passion”.

It is the fact that you just never know what you are going to get when entering the park, that has them coming back for more every time.

“There is so much that we have seen, yet there is an infinite amount of situations and animal behaviours that we have not even considered to be a possibility.

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“On Sunday April 4 we were fortunate enough to witness something that I personally have not seen in pictures or video before.”

Barely 30 minutes into their journey to Satara from Skukuza along the H1-2 road, three hyenas made their appearance.

“They seemed to be extremely active, with a bounce in their step, so I parked the car quite a distance from them in order to give them room and not push them over into the dense bush where they would have disappeared.

“Luckily I set up my camera to take a few shots at the exact moment that the hyenas went into a full-blown sprint.

“It was at that moment we realised that the hyenas had been on the scent of a scrub hare which they flushed out from the grass.

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“The hare ran for its life and picked up quite a pace however this was bettered by the extreme athleticism and pace of the hyenas that were almost airborne for most of the next 20 seconds as they zigzagged after the hare.

“They managed to tire it down and eventually one of the three hyenas pounced on it and seemed to put it out of its misery with one bite.”