In June 2019, ORC welcomed its first international visitors to a 3-day meeting of the Hyaena Distribution Mapping Project and the IUCN Hyaena Specialist Group. The event focussed on reviewing the updated range maps of all 4 Hyaenidae (Striped, Brown and Spotted Hyaena, and Aardwolf) that had been compiled using large volumes of data received from hundreds of contributors and extracted from crowd sources. The workshop team identified data gaps to be addressed by soliciting additional information from hyaena researchers around the world.

The group held important discussions about future projects of the Hyaena Specialist Group, and a new Threats Working Group was initiated. The meeting also served to ensure that the current range mapping efforts will properly align with Red List Assessment needs for the 4 species, providing empirical support during future evaluations of hyaenas’ status. Everyone enjoyed their time at ORC and we hope that the new research campus will be used for many similar collaborative projects! With ORC deeply involved in both the IUCN Specialist Group and the distribution mapping project, there will be more hyaena news soon!