Waste not, want not

With the volume of animal life in the parks of Africa, something is always hungry. This constant appetite creates a theatre for death and the macabre that takes some getting used to, but which is entirely natural once you think past the 'poor sweet animals' kind of thinking. One example of this was a carcass we found early one morning on a drive in Ndutu. A swarm of vultures on the ground lead us to a spot and by the same means drew the attention of a lone hyena.
A female wildebeest had died, our guide said of natural causes, and the vultures were on the carcass hoping to eat as much as they could before other bigger scavengers showed up. This opportunistic hyena slipped in through the crowd and extracted a fetus before scampering off a few dozen feet to try and eat his meal in peace.
Not being keen to share, he quickly chased off any vultures that got too close and was still eating his fill when we moved on. Our guide estimated that the wildebeest had probably only been dead for an hour or two at most and would be stripped to the bones by sunset. Africa is as beautiful as it is unforgiving and lets very little go to waste.