Elsewhere in Ethiopia \u2013 and many other regions of sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 hyenas are feared and denigrated. News programmes often carry stories of them snatching babies, and in the folklore of the Ethiopian highlands, people with the \u201cevil eye\u201d turn into hyenas at night and attack their neighbours. Across Africa, hyenas and people often clash, particularly as human settlements expand. The large carnivores are known to kill people as well as large numbers of livestock, and are often poisoned and killed in retaliatory attacks. Spotted hyenas, in particular, have such a bad reputation that rehabilitating their image has been cited as a species conservation priority by the IUCN.<\/p>\n
Here in Harar, a walled city in eastern Ethiopia, however, their presence is not just accepted but encouraged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a history of living side by side in peace,\u201d says Ahmed Zekaria, a Harari scholar. \u201cThe city is structured to accept them.\u201d<\/p>\n While brown and striped hyenas are classed as \u201cnear-threatened\u201d, spotted hyenas are not but their numbers are in decline. As human-wildlife conflict increases and habitats shrink, the question of how communities can live in coexistence with large predators becomes increasingly pressing.<\/p>\n In Harar, the animals act as the city\u2019s garbage-disposal system, entering at night through a series of \u201chyena doors\u201d built into the walls and eating entrails dumped in the streets. Abbas is a longtime human ally, one of the \u201chyena men\u201d of the city. He learned his trade from his father, Yusuf, who started tossing scraps to hyenas while feeding his dogs decades ago.<\/p>\n Abbas\u2019s connection with the pack runs deep. He has names for all of them, and while most are too skittish to feed directly from his hand, his favourites regularly come to his home.<\/p>\n \u201cI feed them every night, whether there are tourists or not,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n One of his favourites was an elderly female named Chaltu. A few months ago, she wandered into an office building in the town and was clubbed by the guard. When he heard the news, Abbas commandeered an ambulance and brought her to his farm, where he tried to nurse her back to health.<\/p>\n Unfortunately his efforts were in vain. \u201cShe was so special to me. I felt like I had lost a family member,\u201d says Abbas.<\/p>\n Today, his relationship with the hyenas is the town\u2019s biggest attraction, and he charges tourists a fee to join in at feeding time.<\/p>\n Like much of Harar\u2019s Muslim population, Abbas and his father believe hyenas can protect people from mischievous djinn, or spirits.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hyenas eat them,\u201d says Yusuf. \u201cWithout the hyenas, there would be a lot of djinn playing tricks.\u201d<\/p>\n Adil Abubaker, who sells traditional woven baskets in his shop, says their power to keep djinn at bay \u201cis the main reason we need hyenas in the town\u201d.<\/p>\n Adil leaves the leftovers from his table in the cobbled alley outside his house. \u201cThe djinn cannot come if there are hyenas,\u201d says Adil. \u201cWe feed the hyenas and in return, they protect us from evil spirits. It is a give-and-take relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n In Harari folklore, hyenas also act as mediums that can communicate with the town\u2019s dead saints and transmit messages from the townspeople. This is reflected in the local word for hyena: waraba, or \u201cnewsman\u201d.<\/p>\n The origin of these beliefs has been lost. Ahmed, the scholar, speculates that the idea hyenas can eat and spit out djinn could stem from their habit of vomiting undigested bits of bones, hooves and hair.<\/p>\n Anthropologist Marcus Baynes-Rock, author of Among the Bone Eaters: Encounters with Hyenas in Harar, believes the legends formed part of a local pre-Islamic belief system and could have been derived from hyenas\u2019 heightened senses.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you observe them, it seems like they are operating in a different world, that they can see things humans can\u2019t see,\u201d says Baynes-Rock, who spent more than a year in Harar studying the relationship between its people and hyenas. \u201cIt is easy to extrapolate from that if you live in a world brimming with spirits.\u201d<\/p>\n The relationship was not always peaceful. Centuries ago, there was a famine in the region and hungry hyenas preyed on the infirm and sick, according to legend. After deliberating on a nearby mountain, Harar\u2019s saints struck a pact: the townspeople would feed porridge to the hyenas, who would end the attacks.<\/p>\n This story endures during the annual Islamic celebration of Ashura, when pious people still prepare porridge for hyenas at several shrines outside the town.<\/p>\n As part of a broader effort to boost tourism, Ethiopia\u2019s government is keen to capitalise on Abbas\u2019s relationship with the hyenas. Currently, he feeds them on a patch of wasteland once used as a rubbish dump. This will be replaced by a $2.5m (\u00a32m) \u201ceco-park\u201d, complete with shops, cafes and a museum, which officials hope will attract more tourists.<\/p>\n Yet Harar\u2019s development could imperil its unique relationship with its hyenas. For centuries the walled old town stood on a hill, surrounded by rolling countryside. Today it is wrapped in the sprawling embrace of the much larger new town, which has blocked off many of the routes once used by hyenas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how much you encourage them,\u201d says Baynes-Rock, \u201cif there is no room left, the hyenas will just go away.\u201d<\/p>\n