Tallinn Zoo opened the tunnel so visitors can see striped hyena cubs

Visitors at Tallinn Zoo can look again for two striped hyena cubs, the first born there in 17 years. ERR reported on November 5, 2026, that communications manager Anita Tamm said the cubs, born in August, are about three months old and still with their mother, Taia. Keepers have not handled them, so their sexes are unknown and they have not been named. They often stay in the den.

The zoo shut the viewing tunnel after the birth. Tamm said a mother who feels danger may try to carry the cubs somewhere safer and, with such strong jaws, could hurt them by accident. The parents, Taia and Thamani, arrived from French zoos in the summer of 2023. These are Taia's first cubs. She was born on July 5, 2022, at CERZA Zoo, and Thamani was born on May 21, 2021, at La Barben. The previous cubs at Tallinn were a litter of three raised in the nursery in 2009.

Tamm said striped hyenas live in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and that they are more solitary than spotted hyenas. Wild numbers are falling, from habitat loss and from poisoned carcasses. The cubs can stay with their parents until they are about a year old, and the zoo will need to find them a place after that. The news is this litter and the reopened tunnel. It is not a recovery of the wild population.