Print this pageKay Holekamp
Kay Holekamp has been studying hyenas in Kenya continuously since early 1988. For several years her work focused on social development in one large clan of spotted hyenas in the Masai Mara National Reserve, which is located in the northern part of the Serengeti ecosystem. Later, with a number of her graduate students, she expanded the scope of her hyena research to include multiple clans in the Masai Mara as well as two large clans in Amboseli National Park in an effort spearheaded by Dr Heather Watts. In 2006, Dr Holekamp helped Dr Aaron Wagner initiate a study of the behavioral ecology of striped hyenas at Shompole, Kenya, and work comparing striped and spotted hyenas continues today. Dr Holekamp’s research team addresses a number of issues germane to hyena conservation, including behavioral, physiological and demographic effects of anthropogenic disturbance imposed by the expanding human population surrounding the Masai Mara. In addition, Dr Holekamp works on the behavioral endocrinology of hyenas, and also takes advantage of the primate-like social organization of spotted hyenas to use them as model animals for testing hypotheses about the evolution of intelligence in mammals.
The webpage for Dr Holekamp’s laboratory at Michigan State University can be found at
http://hyenas.zoology.msu.edu/.