Ok first off, how I pity the unlucky soul that runs afoul of a marauding hyena. Trust me, you’re in for the most miserable 90 to 120 seconds of your life. That’s how long you have to discourage a hyena bent on attacking you. Two minutes, tops, and if the wild animal is still around then either you’ve killed it or it knows it will kill you.
Now let’s look at the details. Ever seen those posts on survivalist forums about how to fight off a similarly determined wolf or dog? Notice how most of them tell you to resign yourself to getting bit and even recommend you offer a leg as bait so you can punish it with your arms? Yeah, that won’t work here. Pound for pound, the hyena packs the nastiest bite of all mammals. Which means whatever part it bites, you will lose.
And it will bite you. People love to tell stories of human dexterity, of a select few who can outmaneuver a wild animal. I say we’ve started believing our own bedtime stories. Anyone who’s seen a domestic dog at play knows our reflexes are simply no match for theirs. And a hyena is neither domestic nor a dog; it’s a cat — adjacent. More cat than dog, anyway. Point is, you cannot escape its jaws.
But say you somehow do. Say you pull a Beowulf and grab it by the neck. You’ve gained control of the situation, right? Wrong.
Look at that neck. It’s burlier than that dude’s considerable biceps. And it’s on a wild animal used to raw physical battle. That’s the neck of a 70kg creature accustomed to holding 300kg zebras in place with its jaws. Good luck trying to outwrestle it. I give you… 5-10 seconds before you get bit.
Your best bet would be to go for the eyes. Once you’ve somehow latched onto its neck, jam your fingers into those beady blacks hard. If you do it right, the pain will drive the hyena off.
That’s if things go your way. But we both know they hardly do in these situations. So, let’s talk about what happens when you get bit.
Aside from the blinding pain and the horrible, horrible sensation of bones breaking, this asshole will tug, hard. That’s how they roll, just like wolves and dogs. Again, they wrestle on the regular with zebras and wildebeest, so you will lose your balance.
Even then she — because of course it’s a she — won’t stop tugging till something gives way. Her goal is to inflict a gaping wound so that blood loss weakens you. So she will bite hard, pull to tear, all the while watching you keenly to avoid counter blows. At the least sign of danger she will leap back nimbly, circle you for a bit, then dash in again for a lightning fast bite. Rinse and repeat till you’re too weak and disoriented to fight back. That’s when she’ll go for your genitals.
All this changes if you have some sort of weapon, a stick or a knife. Then maybe you stand a chance. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Edit: Wow, 2 years plus and dozens of answers on a variety of real-time issues like global politics and cultural identity, and the first time I cross Quora’s fabled 1000 upvotes threshold is for describing the world’s worst Safari. Perhaps the Romans were right all along; all the people really need is a colosseum. Cheers, my fellow savages!
Yes but it won’t be easy for the human
Hyena have a bite force of around 1,100 psi and it also very strong, there’s only 2 ways a human would kill a hyena unarmed
- Choke it until it dies
- Bang it’s head against a hard surface
If the hyena is a little too strong punch it
There, as you can see a hyena has 2 floating ribs they aren’t connected to other ribs which means they break easily, landed correctly and enough force behind it, it will definitely break a rib or 2 and I don’t see a hyena continue to fight properly after broken ribs
A hyena has 60% chance of winning, so a human can beat a hyena but it will be difficult
Edit: Humans are stronger than most people think, a healthy and fit adult male human’s strength would be equal to an Indian leopard and with an adrenaline rush the person would increase his strength, speed, stamina and pain tolerance by around 10‐15%.
Another edit: A 74 year old man killed a leopard bare handed, a Russian farmer killed a wolf bare handed, an American guy killed a juvenile cougar bare handed and an English guy also killed a leopard bare handed.
Another another edit: I’ve watched some hyena videos and studied them a bit and I might have underestimated a little bit. I instead think a hyena would win around 70‐80% of the time, but I still know that there will be instance where a human kills an adult hyena bare handed.
The smallest member of the hyena family is the aardwolf, an animal that rarely weighs much more than 20 lbs and which largely eats insects.
The largest living hyena species is the spotted hyena. A large female (the larger and more formidable sex) can weigh over 150 lbs. They are active and capable hunters, and have incredibly powerful bites: a spotted hyena can crack the thigh-bone of a giraffe, about 3″ thick. To a hyena, chewing human bones is probably about as much effort as you have with a pretzel.
I imagine a person could fight off an aardwolf.
I really wouldn’t want to fight a spotted hyena, because there isn’t a bone in my body it couldn’t easily crack if it got hold of it with its jaws. Fortunately, spotted hyenas are usually shy and tend to run away when a person comes within several hundred metres; though as with any large predators, there are occasional individuals that will hunt people.
