Editing Hyena (section)

===Attacks on humans===
[[File:Hyena attack (1842 woodcut).jpg|thumb|Illustration from ''Fraser's'' magazine showing an artist's impression of a "stag-hound" biting a spotted hyena attacking its master]]
[[File:Bodleian Libraries, Handbill of Merchant's Hall, 1739, announcing A lion, lionesses, tigers, etc..jpg|thumb|A 1739 advertisement by [[Charles Benjamin Incledon (advertiser)|Charles Benjamin Incledon]] featuring [[feliform]]s: the [[Mesopotamian lion]] from the vicinity of [[Bassorah]], [[Cape lion]], [[tiger]] from the [[East Indies]], [[jaguar|panther]] from [[Buenos Aires]], ''[[Hyaena hyaena]]'' from [[West Africa]], and [[leopard]] from [[Turkey]], besides a "[[Lampago|Man tyger]]" from [[Africa]]. The advertisement mentions that the 'hyaena' can mimic a human voice to lure humans.]]
Ordinarily, striped hyenas are extremely timid around humans, though they may show bold behaviors towards people at night.<ref name="h36">{{Harvnb|Heptner|Sludskii|1992|p=36}}</ref> On rare occasions, striped hyenas have preyed on humans.

Among hyenas, only the spotted and striped hyenas have been known to become [[Man-eating animal|man-eater]]s. Hyenas are known to have preyed on humans in prehistory: human hair has been found in fossilized hyena dung dating back 195,000 to 257,000 years.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/10/oldest-human-hair.html|title=Oldest Human Hair Found in Fossilized Dung|first=Jennifer|last=Viegas|website=Discovery News|access-date=29 November 2020|date=10 February 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100107023507/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/10/oldest-human-hair.html|archive-date=7 January 2010}}</ref> Some paleontologists believe that competition and predation by [[cave hyena]]s (''Crocuta crocuta spelaea'') in [[Siberia]] was a significant factor in delaying human colonization of [[Alaska]]. Hyenas may have occasionally stolen human kills, or entered campsites to drag off the young and weak, much as modern spotted hyenas do in Africa. The oldest Alaskan human remains coincide with roughly the same time cave hyenas became extinct, leading some paleontologists to infer that hyena predation prevented humans from crossing the [[Bering Strait]] earlier.<ref name="Siberia">{{cite web|url=http://www.asu.edu/provost/emerituscollege/EVoice1/Articles%20section/n1%20Turner%206x9.pdf|title=Hyenas and Humans in Ice Age Siberia|work=Christy G. Turner II|publisher=School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University|access-date=2008-08-02 }}{{dead link|date=May 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> Hyenas readily scavenge from human corpses; in Ethiopia, hyenas were reported to feed extensively on the corpses of victims of the [[1960 Ethiopian coup attempt|1960 attempted coup]]<ref>[[Ryszard Kapuściński|Kapuściński, Ryszard]], ''[[The Emperor (book)|The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat]]''. 1978. {{ISBN|0-679-72203-3}}</ref> and the [[Red Terror (Ethiopia)|Red Terror]].<ref>Donham, Donald Lewis (1999) ''Marxist modern: an ethnographic history of the Ethiopian revolution'', University of California Press, page 135, {{ISBN|0-520-21329-7}}</ref> Hyenas habituated to scavenging on human corpses may develop bold behaviors towards living people: hyena attacks on people in southern Sudan increased during the [[Second Sudanese Civil War]], when human corpses were readily available to them.<ref>Copson, Raymond W. (1994) ''Africa's wars and prospects for peace'', M.E. Sharpe, page 6, {{ISBN|1-56324-300-8}}</ref>

Spotted hyenas have been known to prey on humans in modern times, but such incidents are rare. However, attacks on humans by spotted hyenas are likely to be underreported.<ref name="SGDRN">Begg, Colleen, Begg, Keith & Muemedi, Oscar (2007) ''[http://www.selous-niassa-corridor.org/fileadmin/publications/2007-Human-Carnivore_Crocodile_Conflict_-NNR.pdf Preliminary data on human - carnivore conflict in Niassa National Reserve, Mozambique, particularly fatalities due to lion, spotted hyaena and crocodile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111226170051/http://www.selous-niassa-corridor.org/fileadmin/publications/2007-Human-Carnivore_Crocodile_Conflict_-NNR.pdf|date=2011-12-26 }}'', SGDRN (Sociedade para a Gestão e Desenvolvimento da Reserva do Niassa Moçambique)</ref> Man-eating spotted hyenas tend to be very large specimens; a pair of man-eating hyenas, responsible for killing 27 people in [[Mulanje]], [[Malawi]] in 1962, weighed in at 72&nbsp;kg (159&nbsp;lb) and 77&nbsp;kg (170&nbsp;lb) after being shot.<ref name="maneat">Kruuk, Hans (2002) ''Hunter and hunted: relationships between carnivores and people'' Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|0-521-89109-4}}</ref> A 1903 report describes spotted hyenas in the [[Mzimba District|Mzimba district]] of [[Angoniland]] waiting at dawn outside people's huts to attack them when they opened their doors.<ref name="NE"/> Victims of spotted hyenas tend to be women, children and sick or infirm men; [[Theodore Roosevelt]] wrote in 1908–1909 in [[Uganda]] that spotted hyenas regularly killed sufferers of [[African sleeping sickness]] as they slept outside in camps.<ref>Roosevelt, Theodore (1910) ''African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter, Naturalist'', New York, C. Scribner's sons</ref> Spotted hyenas are widely feared in Malawi, where they have been known to attack people at night, particularly during the hot season when people sleep outside. A spate of hyena attacks was reported in Malawi's [[Phalombe]] plain, with five deaths recorded in 1956, five in 1957 and six in 1958. This pattern continued until 1961, when eight people were killed. Attacks occurred most commonly in September, when people slept outdoors and bush fires made the hunting of wild game difficult for the hyenas.<ref name="SGDRN"/><ref name="NE">{{cite book| last=Knight|first=John| title=Natural Enemies: People-Wildlife conflicts in Anthropological Perspective| year=2000|publisher=Psychology Press | isbn=0-415-22441-1 }}</ref> A 2004 news report stated that 35 people were killed by spotted hyenas in a 12-month period in [[Mozambique]] along a 20-km stretch of road near the [[Tanzania]]n border.<ref name="SGDRN"/>

In the 1880s, a hyena was reported to have attacked humans, especially sleeping children, over a three-year period in the [[Iğdır Province]] of Turkey, with 25 children and 3 adults being wounded in one year. The attacks provoked local authorities into announcing a reward of 100 [[ruble]]s for every hyena killed. Further attacks were reported later in some parts of the [[South Caucasus]], particularly in 1908. Instances are known in [[Azerbaijan]] of striped hyenas killing children sleeping in courtyards during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1942, a sleeping guard was mauled in his hut by a hyena in [[Qalıncaq]] (Golyndzhakh).<!-- Through Rissian: В 1942 г., в Исмаиллинском районе (с. Голынджах) гиена проникла в шалаш, где спал сторож, и нанесла ему ранения (Ф. Ф. Алиев) --> Cases of children being taken by hyenas by night are known in southeast Turkmenistan's [[Bathyz Nature Reserve]]. A further attack on a child was reported around [[Serakhs]] in 1948.<ref name="h46">{{Harvnb|Heptner|Sludskii|1992|p=46}}</ref> Several attacks have occurred in India; in 1962, 9 children were thought to have been taken by hyenas in the town of [[Bhagalpur]] in the [[Bihar]] State in a six-week period,<ref name="BOTF"/> and 19 children up to the age of four were killed by hyenas in [[Karnataka]] in 1974.<ref name="m25">{{Harvnb|Mills|Hofer|1998|p=25}}</ref> A survey of wild animal attacks during a five-year period in the Indian state of [[Madhya Pradesh]] reported that hyenas had attacked three people, causing fewer deaths than [[Indian wolf|wolves]], [[gaur]], [[boar]], [[Asian elephant|elephants]], [[Bengal tiger|tigers]], [[Indian leopard|leopards]] and [[sloth bear]]s.<ref name="Attacks">{{cite web| url=http://www.nina.no/archive/nina/Publikasjoner/oppdragsmelding/NINA-OM731.pdf| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927173051/http://www.nina.no/archive/nina/Publikasjoner/oppdragsmelding/NINA-OM731.pdf| archive-date=2007-09-27| title=The Fear of Wolves: A Review of Wolf Attacks on Humans| publisher=Norsk Institutt for Naturforskning| access-date=2008-06-26}}</ref>