Apparently it's #HyenaDay! Who wants to hear about my very favorite hyena, Grace O'Malley? I got to know O'Malley as an RA for @MaraHyenas and her story is pretty incredible.

(this thread contains hyena drama, an Irish pirate, cute photos, sad photos, and a happy ending)

O'Malley became an instant favorite because of the circumstances under which we first found her. In December 2015, the Happy Zebra clan moved their communal den and we could. not. find. it. for almost 3 months. Most of the social behavior we record is at dens, so this sucked.

We spent those 3 months driving in circles around Happy Zebra's territory praying we'd find literally any hyenas who could lead us to the den.

One day in February we stumbled on a glorious sight: babies! babies for days! Crammed into a den like clowns in a clown car.

O'Malley was one of those babies but she didn't get her name right away. We name cubs in themes based on their mom, so with new cubs we dole out "cub names" until we figure out maternity. O'Malley's cub name was Frida Kahlo. You can probably hazard a guess which one she is here:

Eventually we spotted a young female named Jolly Roger nursing "Frida." This was her first cub so we got to pick a new theme for her. I jumped at the chance to make her theme "female pirates" and name her first cub after the 16th century Irish pirate queen, Grace O'Malley.

(the real Grace O'Malley or Gráinne Ní Mháille is worthy of a whole separate thread so you should google her if you've never heard of her)

O'Malley was a ferocious little critter. She was the great-granddaughter of Happy Zebra's matriarch, Pike, and she acted accordingly. She kept picking fights with cubs twice her size and winning, which endeared her to me immediately.

After a couple months, something went wrong. O'Malley got really sluggish and skinny. She wouldn't play with the other cubs anymore, and spent most of her time curled up in a little ball. We realized we hadn't seen her mom at the den in a couple weeks, and started to worry.

We couldn't be at the den 24/7 so it was possible Jolly Roger was visiting when we weren't there, but O'Malley clearly wasn't getting much to eat. Hyenas aren't great moms to start - first cubs often die. It's possible Jolly Roger had died, or just forgotten she had a cub at all.

Part of being an animal researcher is witnessing death. It's an inherent part of life that we can't change or affect, we can only watch and record. I'd seen plenty of death, but witnessing a cub wasting away like this was heartbreaking.

I still had some hope: O'Malley hadn't completely lost the spark that first drew me to her. Other moms occasionally brought meat to the den for their cubs. O'Malley would uncurl and fling herself into the fray, chasing off larger and occasionally higher ranking hyenas for scraps

One morning we drove up to the den, and everyone was gone. Happy Zebra had moved the den again, and we had no idea where they were. O'Malley was also missing, which was puzzling. Had Jolly Roger returned and moved her? Had she followed the rest of the clan by herself?

At this point I didn't have high hopes for O'Malley's chances. Even if Jolly Roger was still around, moving dens would be a lot for a malnourished little cub to handle. I was only going to be in Kenya for another month, and I started to worry I'd never see my favorite cub again.

A day or two after we lost the den, we stumbled on the first of two miracles: Jolly Roger and O'Malley, hanging out together in the middle of the road! I may have said some unkind words about Jolly Roger's parenting but I was VERY glad to see them together again.

Unfortunately, they didn't seem to be at a den and none of the rest of the clan was nearby. We hovered around for as long as we could, hoping they'd lead us to the den, but eventually had to leave. 3 weeks passed, and my flight home from Kenya got closer and closer.

With 2 weeks to go before I left Kenya, the second miracle occurred. We found a mom we knew had cubs roaming Happy Zebra, and followed her for an hour. I happened to have my voice recorder on when we crested a hill to find the new den, and the sound I made could have broken glass

Galloping around the den, alive and well with a nice chubby belly, was O'Malley. She was much smaller than the other cubs her age, but it didn't seem to slow her down at all

Almost immediately after we arrived, I watched her walk up to a higher ranking cub, grab a chunk of wildebeest ribcage he'd been chewing on, and walk off with it easy as you please. She did not appear to have lost her piratical ways.

Thus ends the saga of O'Malley (almost). I had the chance to go back to Kenya a year later, and to my absolute pleasure we chanced upon her all grown up. The last I heard she was still doing well and getting close to the age where she'll start to have cubs of her own.

O'Malley survived some pretty incredible odds. 50% of hyena cubs never make it past their first year, and firstborn cubs often fare worse than that. I'm forever grateful I got to spend a year getting to know these incredible animals and their stories.