Discussion
Spotted hyenas in this rapidly developing landscape appear to be
selecting for and against environmental, infrastructural, and human
tolerance characteristics at different scales, demonstrating that it is
crucial to consider social-ecological landscape permeability on
coexistence frontiers and in human-dominated landscapes generally. We
found that parallel wire electric fences may be perceived as a risk by
hyenas – as indicated by their interactions with the fence largely
consisting of either quickly crossing or immediately leaving the
area—while simultaneously being highly permeable to this species,
which has implications for coexistence and movement for this apex
predator. Additionally, the hyenas in this region exhibited several
landscape use and navigation propensities that differ from previous
studies on this species conducted in landscapes that are on the high or
low extremes of anthropogenic influences.