Barrier interactions
A 50-meter fence buffer best captured quick cross events, or events where hyenas quickly crossed a fence after approaching it. Spotted hyena individuals encountered fences on average 193 (σ=168.5) times during the study period. Overwhelmingly, hyenas encountering fences either exhibited quick cross (n=583, or 49% of all fence encounters) or bounce (n=507, 42.7%), with average movement (n=45, 3.8%), trace ( 3 times, 0.25%), and back and forth (n=7, 0.59%) exhibited occasionally (Figure 5a).Bounce is a behavior in which hyenas that encounter the fence immediately walk away from the fence. There was marked individual variation in overall fence encounters, as illustrated by high standard deviations in average fence encounter frequency. Bounce behaviors were slightly more prevalent during the dry season (prop. = 0.44 in the dry season, .41 in the wet season), though this result was insignificant (Mann-Whitney p = 0.48 and p = 0.699; Figure 5b). Quick crossbehaviors remained the same across seasons (prop. = 0.49). Judging by differences in hyena behaviors around different fence segments, some segments may be more permeable than others. The highest concentration of quick cross behaviors appeared to be on the fence lines between the two protected areas, indicating high permeability for those fence segments. Meanwhile, the bounce behaviors had a considerably wider spread along the boundaries (see Supporting Information), indicating regions where hyenas may have attempted to cross but could not due to fence impermeability. Notably, fence behaviors revealed several crossing points connecting LNNP to Soysambu Conservancy.
Camera trap data revealed 234 individual hyenas spanning at least 4 clans and various social ranks approaching the fence across the 16 studied sites, with one site having a minimum of 67 different individuals appearing at the fence (Table 4; Supporting Information). Across all sites, 63 individuals appeared at the fence in more than 10 images during the study period.