The clan are back.

The spotted hyenas are back on Djuma. This clan has been living in the area for ages. The den is in a very thick area on the river bank close to Spagheti junction, between Bateleur and Nyala road south. Only the two smallest  cubs are there permanantly, the larger two are there sometimes but also quite often out with the adults now. WE have seen them feeding on a buffalo leg, giraffe leg and remains of an impala carcass over the last few days (WE don't know where they brought it from). There are a total of 10 in the clan; Floppy-ear, the matriarch, two smaller and two larger cubs and 5 other adults, all looking healthy. Below is a photograph taken last year at the old den site where you can clearly see the small notch in the left ear of the one cub, same fella in the above pic taken this week.

The youngster with the left ear notch seems to be extra inquisitive, and regularly comes to have a look at the vehicle. They have been seen very regularly on day and night safaris, and WE are super happy to have the clan home.

Over the next few days there are going to be a variety of difficult to schedule disruptions to the WildEarth channel feed from Djuma on both the Internet and IPTV channels in the UK. These disruptions will obviously be kept to a minimum, but they are necessary as WE switch over onto our digital Final Control, change our service from a 4:3 aspect ratio to 14:9 (maybe 16:9) and massively increase our stream speed to our TV viewers in the UK. To do all of this means that a variety of technicians from various organizations in South Africa, Germany, Holland, England and the United States will coordinate the installation of a super high speed line directly from Djuma to Rotterdam in Holland, a serious server infrastructure in Holland, the decommissioning of our old server system in South Africa, and the reconnecting of the new streams into the SomethingTV head end and the Zaplive distribution system.

I have no doubt that there will be problems, set backs, frustrations and a variety of other thoughts and emotions. WE ask for your patience and consideration. When complete the service will be different from before and there will be some who will not like the changes. Please understand that these changes are not a sign that WildEarth does not care about you, or are working hard to make your viewing harder, worse or different for the sake of it. WE need to make our stream more TV compatible and of a higher technical standard. This will benefit our Internet viewers as well. When complete our stream will fit a widescreen (TV and PC) much better and the resolution of the image on full screen will be much better for our IPTV viewers and a bit better for our Internet viewers.