One of Israel's most famous wild animal, Ruthie the hyena, died this weekend after she was hit by a car on Highway 443.
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Ruthie was well-known in Modi'in and the Ben Shemen Forest. The hyena was first spotted in 2017, when homeowners reported seeing her in their gardens and digging in their trash cans. As time passed, locals began to divide on the issue of whether or not she should be trapped. At one point, the matter reached a local court, which ruled that Ruthie should be trapped.
Wildlife officials trapped her several times and released her in uninhabited areas, but she always returned to her original stomping ground. She had a tracker, which allowed wildlife officials to confirm her death.
Ruthie's insistence on returning to her home ground turned her into a symbol of the struggle between wildlife and urbanization, and inspired many debates about how best to resolve it.
