Posted on 08/07/2010 5:25:37 AM PDT by Daffynition
Here in this medieval city in eastern Ethiopia, the humans and the hyenas are living in peace.
The truce began two centuries ago (or so the story goes) during a time of great famine.
There was drought in the hills where the wildlife roamed, and hungry hyenas had sneaked into Harar and eaten people.
Distressed, the town's Muslim saints convened a meeting on a nearby mountaintop. There, they devised a solution: The people would feed the hyenas porridge if the hyenas would stop their attacks.
The plan worked, and a strange, symbiotic relationship was born.
City leaders went on to create holes in the sand-colored stone walls that surround Harar to give the hyenas nightly access to the town's garbage. And in the 1960s, a farmer started feeding hyenas scraps of meat (goat, donkey, sometimes camel) to keep them away from his livestock.
That farmer was the first hyena man. Today the title belongs to Youseff Mume Saleh.
Lithe and quick, Saleh, who is unsure of when he was born but says he is in his early 50s, has high cheekbones, a pursed mouth and few words. He lives just outside the city walls, near an ancient Muslim shrine built around the trunk of a splendid fig tree. His home sits on an old landfill, the ground sparkling with shards of broken bottles.
Saleh's nightly feeding ritual has become an attraction for tourists, who hire guides to bring them here. He has grown accustomed to the flash of their cameras and the tips they slip him at the end of the night.
(Excerpt) Read more at vancouversun.com ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyena
Early naturalists thought hyenas were hermaphrodites or commonly practiced homosexuality, largely due to the female Spotted Hyena’s unique urogenital system. According to early writings such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Physiologus, the hyena continually changed its sex and nature from male to female and back again. In Paedagogus, Clement of Alexandria noted that the hyena (along with the hare) was “quite obsessed with sexual intercourse.” Many Europeans associated the hyena with sexual deformity, prostitution and deviant sexual behavior.
____________________________________________
‘nuff said;) LOL!!!
Big weasels.
Although hyenas bear some physical resemblance to canids, they make up a separate biological family that is most closely related to Herpestidae (the family of mongooses and meerkats), thereby falling within the Feliformia.
I wish some hyenas would sneak into our capitol city and eat a few people.
One of these days, he’s going to make a wrong move or not have enough. Then he’ll be dinner. Wild animals revert to wild easily and quickly, no matter how much you work with them. It’s a wonder wolves were ever truly domesticated into dogs.
“He is .... The Hyena Whisperer”!!!
You have to admit that a nickname of “Dances with Hyenas” would be pretty kick-ass.
The Hyena, (often referred to as the “laughing hyena” for their hysterical laughter when calling others of their kind to a feeding frenzy) is one of the most disgusting creatures of the “animal world.” They are indiscriminate in their eating habits, often feeding on the dead or dying. However, they are also known to hunt in packs, isolating the very young or the sick and old, for an easy kill.
Hyenas live in socialist groups led by dominant females. (see above photograph) And, the females of the species have even developed genitalia that has a striking resemblance to male (hyena) genitalia, to appear stronger and more fierce.
Their young are raised in daycare centers, where they are indoctrinated in the “pack’s” “group think” agenda and not interfere with the search for food.
Hyenas have been a dominant force for many years; but, their reign of terror may be coming to an end, as others are waking up to their deceitful ways.
Beware the Jackal, for they eat their own young.
Awwwwwwwww. :)
That’ll keep the libs out, you betcha.
Couldn't have been much of a famine then, if they had porridge to spare. And whatever happened to just killing the damn critters (more meat to eat too!)?
Muslim saints = MAJOR FAIL!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.