Diamonds And Dust: 13 - Strandwolf Stories
…The next morning being a Sunday, we all walked up the riverbed so have a look. To our surprise, there in the cage was a strandwolf. It had long brownish hair with white around the throat area and stripes on its legs. It seemed to be about the size of a large dog and weigh about 40 kilograms. The head was massive and we knew that hyenas had strong jaws. It was pretty ugly looking…
Malcolm Bertoni tells of a species of hyena which scavenge along beaches.
To read earlier chapters of Malcolm’s account of diamond mining please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/diamonds_and_dust/
We had heard about the strandwolf, that were actually a species of hyena, the brown hyena. The literal translation of “strandwolf” is “beach wolf,” due to their habit of scavenging along the beaches.
We often heard them howling at night and saw their tracks near the kitchen, probably sniffing out the meat in the coolroom and also the dump where all the rubbish was thrown. But we had never actually seen one close up as they were very shy and allusive. So we built a big cage made of strong mesh and one weekend placed it about 1˝ kilometre up the old riverbed near the natural spring where there was always water. We got some meat and rigged it so that it would drop the door and hopefully trap the strandwolf.
The next morning being a Sunday, we all walked up the riverbed so have a look. To our surprise, there in the cage was a strandwolf. It had long brownish hair with white around the throat area and stripes on its legs. It seemed to be about the size of a large dog and weigh about 40 kilograms. The head was massive and we knew that hyenas had strong jaws. It was pretty ugly looking.
We gingerly approached the cage and it charged at us. One of the guys picked up a piece of 2 x 3 timber to poke at the strandwolf, and with a crunch of his jaws the strandwolf snapped the timber in two. We stared in amazement at the demolished piece of timber. You wouldn’t want to get in the way of this thing. We looked at the beast for a while and then decided to let it go. We released the door and watched as the strandwolf cantered up the riverbed with that characteristic gait that they had.
Another time Brian L_ was coming off dayshift which finished at midnight. He had gone to the dining room to get something to eat. There was always food available in the fridge and the dining room was never locked.
So Brian was crossing the footbridge and heading towards his room, munching on some cold chicken. There was a light at each end of the bridge, but it was a bit shadowy in the middle. Brian was ambling along minding his own business when suddenly in front of him there appeared a strandwolf coming his way. They met face to face smack bang in the middle of the bridge.
It is questionable who was the most surprised – Brian or the strandwolf. They looked at each other for a second and then both turned tail and ran as fast at their legs could carry them. The hyena headed back up the riverbed and Brian ran into the dining room. He stayed in the dining room for about an hour, too scared to go to his room. Finally he plucked up enough courage to bolt to his room as fast as he could.
He told us all this the next day and we cracked up at the mental picture of these two meeting in the middle of the bridge. We all reckoned that the strandwolf would have been mentally scarred for life and was still running.
