Fencing Affects African Wild Dog Movement Patterns and Population Dynamics
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Fencing affects African wild dog movement patterns and population dynamics H ELEN M. K. O’ N EILL,SARAH M. DURANT S TEFANIE S TREBEL and R OSIE W OODROFFE Abstract Wildlife fences are often considered an important Introduction tool in conservation. Fences are used in attempts to pre- vent human–wildlife conflict and reduce poaching, despite abitat fragmentation is a leading threat to global bio- known negative impacts on landscape connectivity and ani- Hdiversity (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ). mal movement patterns. Such impacts are likely to be par- As habitats become increasingly fragmented, wildlife pop- ticularly important for wide-ranging species, such as the ulations also become fragmented in smaller, genetically African wild dog Lycaon pictus, which requires large areas isolated, subpopulations that will be at greater risk of of continuous habitat to fulfil its resource requirements. extinction (Lande, ). This is of particular concern for Laikipia County in northern Kenya is an important area wide-ranging species that are reliant on accessing large for wild dogs but new wildlife fences are increasingly areas to fulfil their resource requirements, meaning that being built in this ecosystem. Using a long-term dataset fragmentation can lead to such species being extirpated, from the area’s free-ranging wild dog population, we evalu- even when habitat may remain (Løvschal et al., ). Frag- ated the effect of wildlife fence structure on the ability of mentation often increases the cost incurred by wildlife wild dogs to cross them. The extent to which fences im- in obtaining vital resources and may even cut access off en- peded wild dog movement differed between fence designs, tirely (Epps et al., ; Løvschal et al., ). Fragmentation although individuals crossed fences of all types. Purpose- can occur as a result of habitat loss, but is also associated built fence gaps increased passage through relatively imper- with the erection of barriers to movement such as fences meable fences. Nevertheless, low fence permeability can lead (Clevenger & Waltho, ). to packs, or parts of packs, becoming trapped on the wrong Fences have been employed in attempts to mitigate – side of a fence, with consequences for population dynamics. numerous conservation issues, including human wildlife Careful evaluation should be given to the necessity of erect- conflict, invasive species control, prevention of disease ing fences; ecological impact assessments should incorpo- transmission and delineation of protected area bound- rate evaluation of impacts on animal movement patterns aries (Hayward & Kerley, ; Gadd, ; Hayward & and should be undertaken for all large-scale fencing inter- Somers, ; Beale et al., ). In some cases fences have ventions. Where fencing is unavoidable, projects should led to positive conservation outcomes such as reductions in – use the most permeable fencing structures possible, both human elephant conflict (Knickerbocker & Waithaka, ), in the design of the fence and including as many purpose- protection of threatened native species from invasive spe- built gaps as possible, to minimize impacts on wide-ranging cies in New Zealand (Burns et al., ), or, in the case of wildlife. the Critically Endangered hirola antelope Beatragus hunteri in Kenya, from native predators (Ali et al., ). However, Keywords African wild dog, connectivity, fence, Lycaon although fences can have positive impacts, the effects are pictus, movement ecology, wide-ranging often mixed. Building and maintaining fences is costly, Supplementary material for this article is available at and the associated habitat fragmentation can require the doi.org/./S use of expensive, complex conservation management strate- gies, including translocations, to maintain genetic diversity across metapopulations (Davies-Mostert et al., ; Buk et al., ). There are also reports of negative impacts, in- cluding mortalities, as a result of fencing preventing animals HELEN M. K. O’NEILL*† (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002-9458- from accessing vital resources, and of individuals becom- 4494), SARAH M. DURANT and ROSIE WOODROFFE Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK. E-mail h.o’[email protected] ing entangled or being electrocuted by fences (Gadd, ; Pietersen et al., ). However, although there are multiple STEFANIE STREBEL Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland examples where fences have restricted the access of wild *Also at: Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, Division of animals to vital resources (Gadd, ), thereby negatively Biosciences, University College London, London, UK affecting populations, the impact of such barriers on the † Current address: Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, School of movements of individual animals is poorly understood. Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Some fencing projects have sought to minimize harmful Received September . Revision requested November . Accepted April . effects by using fences with different levels of permeability, This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, Downloadeddistribution, from https://www.cambridge.org/core and reproduction in any medium,. IP address: provided 82.26.43.192 the original work, on 10 is properlyAug 2021 cited. at 14:35:52, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsOryx, Page 1 of 9 © The Author(s),. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605320000320 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000320 2H.M.K.O’Neill et al. which block the passage of certain key species but allow also presented, to provide context for the quantitative other species to cross. Semi-permeable fence structures may analyses. be high enough for species to pass below, or low enough for species to jump over, but act as barriers to the movement Study area of less agile species such as the elephant Loxodonta africana, the white rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum or the black The study area lies in Laikipia County in northern Kenya; a rhinoceros Diceros bicornis. Similarly, purpose-built gaps, wooded savannah landscape (mean annual rainfall mm; which permit the passage of some species but prevent the Woodroffe, ). Laikipia supports the second highest movement of others, are sometimes included in the structure density of large terrestrial mammalian wildlife in Kenya of a fence to increase permeability (Dupuis-Désormeaux et al., (Kinnaird & O’Brien, ) and is an important area for a). These gaps may allow animals to pass through the many threatened species. fence, but if there are few gaps then animals may have The landscape is divided into privately and community to move a considerable additional distance to use them. owned properties of , – km , with land uses including Fence gaps may also have impacts on the movement of traditional pastoralism, commercial livestock ranching, sub- wildlife species as they are likely to funnel them into sistence agriculture, large-scale farming, and tourism (Ulrich certain areas (Little et al., ), thereby affecting species’ et al., ). The amount of wildlife fencing in Laikipia has distributions across a landscape (Dupuis-Desormeaux et al., increased since . Many of the properties in Laikipia are b). fenced to demarcate their boundaries (Evans & Adams, ; The African wild dog Lycaon pictus is an extremely Yurco, ); fencing is also used in an attempt to reduce wide-ranging species (Woodroffe, ), categorized on human–wildlife conflict and to reduce rhinoceros poaching the IUCN Red List as Endangered (Woodroffe & Sillero- by containing animals within protected reserves (Dupuis- Zubiri, ). The species is threatened by habitat loss and Désormeaux et al., a; Blair & Meredith, ). fragmentation; it is estimated to have been extirpated from We focused on the effects of the fences of two of the largest up to % of its former range (IUCN/SSC, , , ). wildlife properties in Laikipia, referred to here as Property A and Wild dogs need access to large, continuous areas of wildlife- Property B. These properties are used by wild dog packs (Sup- friendly habitat to persist; increases in fencing would be plementary Fig. ) and employ three types of fencing (Fig. ). expected to affect wild dogs negatively because they will Property A comprises two sections. The property’sranch- fragment the landscape and confine packs to smaller areas. ing and tourism businesses are based in the western part In South Africa, where wild dogs live in fenced reserves, the (hereafter Property A), which supports a wide variety of metapopulation has to be actively managed using trans- wildlife. Property A ( km ) is fenced with a low-level, locations and reintroductions (Davies-Mostert et al., ), electrified Type A fence, which is raised from the ground although some positive impacts of fencing have been (Fig. a). The fence is . km long and intended to restrict found within this metapopulation as individuals have been the movement of elephants and rhinoceroses. This fence has shown to suffer lower mortality when released with an five purpose-built gaps (Fig. d, Supplementary Figs & ) established social group into securely fenced reserves (Gusset that allow the passage of most wildlife species but prevent et al., , ). Wild dogs have also