Two-year-old Kiki Volhuter lives with her parents in Sango National Park in Zimbabwe. As befits the daughter of zoologists, she loves animals. She loves hyenas the most, and not only loves but befriends an entire pack of hyenas, spending her time playing with the pups.
Most children dream of a kitten or a puppy, but two-year-old Kiki Volhuter has made some unusual friends – a whole herd of hyenas! After her parents – zoologists working in Sango National Park – gave her a toy hyena, she fell in love with these animals.
Today the girl runs with hyenas in a race, hugs the puppies and plays with them with a stick, not at all afraid of predators.
Kiki usually plays with young hyenas under the supervision of her father, a biologist specializing in the study of these animals.
Kim Wolhuter, Kiki’s father, not only studies hyenas in the wild, but also makes movies about them. For many years, he and his family have lived in Africa, close to the objects that interest them.
Even before her daughter was born, Kim, 61, befriended hyenas. According to him, he does not feed them, and so they regularly come to his house simply because they love him and they like to play with him, and now with his daughter.
Kim himself decided to introduce his daughter to the hyenas. “Once they came to our garden, I started playing with them, and Kiki asked to be able to play with the hyenas too,” he says.
At first I was scared, because hyenas treat cubs differently, but she kept asking, and I thought nothing would happen if I held her hand. »
“The young hyenas were curious and wanted to sniff her,” says Kiki’s father. The dogs do it – not badly and not much, but for Kiki it would be quite painful, but when I saw that they had no intention of actively jumping on her, and looked at her with a little apprehension, I allowed them to approach and sniff it.
According to Kim, Kiki treats hyenas as pets and isn’t afraid of them at all.
