The majority (85%) of Gabon is covered with relatively intact tropical rainforests and thus much of Gabonese mammalian fauna is composed of forest specialists (Laurance et al. 2006). There are also areas of disturbed forest and savannah (Fig. 1). Reports of spotted hyena have mostly come from savannah habitats, with few (or an absence of) confirmed reports within primary rainforests (Mills and Hofer 1998). In Gabon specifically, this species was present in the south-eastern grassland habitats (Haut-Ogooué province) and also in southern savannah inclusions near N’Dende and Tchibanga (Nyanga province), but might have avoided rainforest habitats and northern-Gabonese savannahs (Malbrant and MacIatchy 1949). The last documented record of spotted hyena in Haut-Ogooué province was from 1949 (Malbrant and MacIatchy 1949) and, as such, this species is currently considered locally extinct in Gabon, with no record (Wilks 1990) until a single observation in

2003 in the north-east of the country (Henschel and Ray 2003).

In neighbouring countries also, close to the Gabon border, there have been very few confirmed reports of this species. In Congo, there are records from two localities: in the northwest of the country in Odzala National Park and nearby Lekoli-Pandaka Faunal Reserve and M’Boko Hunting Reserve (Hecketsweiler 1990; Hecketsweiler et al. 1991), in the southwest of Congo in Conkouati Hunting Reserve (Hecketsweiler and Mokoko Ikonga 1991; Doumenge 1992). In Equatorial Guinea, there has been one record from Rio Muni (Juste and Castroviejo 1992), the status being otherwise unknown (Fa 1991). In Cameroon, at last, the species was historically widespread in the northern Savannah zone (Jeannin 1936). It is now still recorded around protected areas and around at least 23 gazetted hunting zones (Mills and Hofer 1998) and may occur in forest reserves (Depierre and Vivien 1992). But these records concern the northern part of Cameroon, far from the Gabon border.