Why is the ecosystem of the Outlands so bad?

[FriendlyHyena]

If you just focus on the first movie, one could assume that the Outlands sucked because the hyenas were just overhunters, which would pan out into what they did into the Pridelands.


However, in The Lion King 2, it states that the hyenas are gone (though they are still there in The Lion Guard (Wonder where they go?)!!) yet Nuka appears to be starving and the only one, other than perhaps Zira, doing well is Kovu. So it can't just be the hyenas messing up the ecosystem.


Of course, not all of the Outlands is bad (there is Timon and Pumba world out there after all), but within the vicinity of the Pridelands, it looks awful in both movies.


If so, then perhaps Zazu is just biased, at first, when he says that the hyenas are poachers. Maybe things really were so bad for them that they'd risk Mufasa's wrath by sneaking in to get food. (If this is so, that would mean the Pridelands under Scar were VERY bad, if Banzai missed it back when they raided the Pridelands to get food under Mufasa's rule!!!!)

It is possible that the hyenas didn't overhunt before, but that the Pridelanders may have been greedy at first, calling them poachers out of an anti-hyena bias. However, I think once Scar let them have free reign, they did get way out of hand and hunted to their heart's content and then some.


All in all, I think it's safe to assume that the resource problem in the Outlands is NOT the fault of the hyenas, or, at least, that they are not a major factor if their absence in the second movie didn't change the Outlands to a decent level of resources (though it DID change the Pridelands back to a decent level by them leaving.)