08/31/2026
CNN: WORLD AFRICA
Bone-crushing hyenas are cleaning up city streets in Ethiopia
By Daniel Olivares Gallego
MAY 13, 2026
Abbas Yusuf is one of the last "hyena men" in the Ethiopian city of Harar, feeding wild hyenas by hand, and by mouth.
12 images: The Ethiopian cities where humans and hyenas coexist
12 photos.
Every night, Abbas Yusuf crosses the ancient walls of the holy city of Harar, Ethiopia, and starts calling the animals by name.
Kamariya, “like the moon.” Chaltu, “refined.” And his favorite, Jarjaraa, “the hurrying one.”
A spotted hyena steps out of the darkness and takes a strip of meat from a stick he holds between his teeth.
To Abbas, these carnivores are welcome visitors. “I prepare the meat,” he says, in his native Oromo language. “And the guests who come, I take care of them and see them off in peace.”
Abbas is one of Harar’s last “hyena men,” holding onto the tradition of feeding one of Africa’s most feared predators — even inside his home.
He has become something of an attraction, with visitors paying to see the nightly feeds and have their photos taken up close with the wild animals.
Night hunters with an evil-sounding “laugh,” hyenas have earned a worldwide reputation as the villains of the savanna. But in Ethiopia, new research suggests hyenas could help solve the country’s problem of urban waste, improve public health — and even help in the fight against climate change.
Spotted hyenas gather at a landfill outside Harar, where they come to scavenge.
Spotted hyenas gather at a landfill outside Harar, where they come to scavenge. Marcus Baynes-Rock
Bone-eating refuse collectors
North of Harar, in Mekelle — capital of the Tigray region — wildlife ecology expert Dr. Gidey Yirga has been studying urban hyenas for over 15 years.
Yirga explains hyenas have “very flexible behavior”: Living in large matriarchal societies, they often hunt and raise their cubs cooperatively. They are formidable predators and may turn to scavenging when the opportunity arises.
As Africa becomes increasingly urban, hyenas and other wild animals are brought closer to human life, especially toward landfills. When night falls in Mekelle, wild hyenas “commute” from their underground dens on the outskirts into the city’s landfills.
A recent study led by Yirga at the University of Sheffield and Mekelle University found that urban scavengers in Mekelle — from hyenas to vultures and stray dogs — process nearly 5,000 metric tons of organic waste a year, saving the city council $100,000 in waste disposal costs. Spotted hyenas do 90% of the work.
In a city with patchy waste collection, their cleaning services cut carbon emissions from the decomposition of organic waste and recycle the nutrients of leftover meat that would otherwise rot on roadsides. According to another study by Yirga, they also stop the spread of deadly diseases like anthrax and bovine tuberculosis!
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𝓘𝓶𝓪𝓶 𝓢𝓗 𝓢𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓱𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓷 𝓦𝓪𝔃𝓲𝓻
AIC, Inc. CEO & Founder
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
August 30, 2026
Sources: CNN Africa
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