What is it like to have a pet hyena?

Have you ever seen a “tame” hyena in a show? There's a reason for that. The alleged “African hyena handlers” do not have them as “pets.” These are a group of traveling…call them buskers…not unlike the snake-charmers of India and dancing-bear-handlers of Eastern Europe. read more

Don’t keep a hyena as a pet. Seriously. On the unlikelihood of hyena domestication. Or: No, you can’t have one. Even Florida, which has some stupidly lax laws about keeping exotics as pets (possibly because so many circus performers retired there with their animals) is thinking of banning them. read more

It sounds like such a cool idea to have a hyena as a pet. Half the visitors to this otherwise non-hyena-related blog arrive here looking for ways to domesticate a hyena and keep it as a pet. read more

Here at Hyena Central I get a lot of visitors looking for information on how to keep a hyena as a pet. And for good reason! Reports of hyenas being domesticated have been circulated by the African Wildlife Foundation, Animal Planet, and the BBC— among other sources blatantly plagiarizing one source or the other. read more