Print this pageIngrid Wiesel
Dr. Ingrid Wiesel started studying the predatory and foraging behaviour of brown hyenas in the coastal area of the Namib Desert in Namibia in 1995. The coast supports several large mainland Cape fur seal breeding colonies. These provide a permanent, concentrated food source for brown hyenas. Brown hyenas are the apex predators along the southern part of the coast and fill the highest trophic level in the food chain, as other large predators are absent and as they feed and prey on marine predatory mammals. She studied this unique predator-prey system and finished her Masters degree in 1998 and her doctorate in 2006.
The Brown Hyena Research Project was registered as a Namibian non-profit organization in 2002 and Dr Wiesel and colleagues are now engaged in a variety of research and conservation projects, including pre- to post-impact studies in areas defined for new land use. They also work closely together with the Namibian government in giving recommendations regarding the zoning of the new ‘Sperrgebiet’ National Park in southern Namibia to improve brown hyena conservation. More recently they started with a human-wildlife-conflict study bordering the future National Park, where they monitor the movement of spotted hyenas in this area.
Dr Wiesel's PhD dissertation is available online:
Wiesel, I. (2006). Predatory and foraging behaviour of brown hyenas (Parahyaena brunnea (Thunberg, 1820)) at Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus Schreber, 1776) colonies. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Hamburg, Germany.
One can download her dissertation from any of the following URLs:
www.strandwolf.org
http://www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/opus/volltexte/2007/3152/
www.predatorconservation.com
Dr Wiesel and colleagues also publish a quarterly newsletter about their project, which one can download from either the strandwolf or predatorconservation web pages listed above.