Implications for landscape permeability
At broad scales, hyenas in this developing region appear to be selecting
for ecological characteristics that reflect their resource selection in
other, less developed systems. In contrast, movement choices at a fine
scale are more nuanced and influenced by anthropogenic factors. Hyena
clan sizes in this region are relatively large (with more than 50
animals per group for clans assessed thus far) despite the small size of
the protected areas, which could be influencing the apparent movement of
hyenas toward people and likely toward anthropogenic resource subsidies.
Other studies in similar environments have estimated hyena carrying
capacity to be orders of magnitudes lower than the populations seen in
our study site (e.g., Holekamp & Smale 1995; Yirga et al. 2014).
Despite this suspected significant reliance on anthropogenic resources,
hyenas showed a general aversion to roads, with different selection
strengths depending on scale and land management type, which is contrary
to what we expected. Fences also present a semi-permeable barrier for
spotted hyenas, which appear to cross them as quickly as possible rather
than lingering. Other studies have found that keeping development and
subdivision below a certain threshold may allow for sustained carnivore
navigation of the landscape between core habitat areas (Smith et
al. 2019; Xu et al. 2023). This may also prove true for the
spotted hyenas, which appear to have complex relationships with
infrastructure within and surrounding the two protected areas. Yet,
hyena relationships with fences can also provide information that is
helpful for management efforts. We can use fence behavior analyses to
determine existing permeable fence segments (Xu et al . 2020) and
make ecologically-informed decisions about where carnivore (and other
wildlife) corridors in and out of fenced regions will be the most
useful, practical, and cost-effective.
Overall, our results imply that anthropogenic factors may influence fine
scale decision making differently than landscape-scale selection. Hyenas
may be adaptable enough to switch to anthropogenic food sources in
regions of depleted natural prey or limited resources, yet their ability
to rely on anthropogenic food may be linked to regional tolerance of
hyenas (e.g., Yirga et al. 2012). Spatially explicit human
acceptance and experience have the potential to predict where wildlife
corridors are likely to succeed for certain species or taxa, while also
providing insight into how wildlife may be using anthropogenic resources
(Behr et al. 2017; Ghoddousi et al. 2021). Coupled with
hyena context-specific selection for and against infrastructure
characteristics, these results demonstrate that a multiscale and
multidisciplinary understanding of social-ecological landscape use and
navigation can help to determine where and when this species may thrive
in human-dominated landscapes. This approach is essential for a species
that is key for removing carcasses and diseases from the environment
(Sonawane et al. 2021), and in a location that is becoming
increasingly fenced, but the social-ecological approaches used here can
also be applied to movements and reintroductions of other controversial
wildlife species in other settings (see Ditmer et al. 2022;
Manfredo et al . 2021; Vasudev et al. 2023; Williamson et al. 2023; Williamson & Sage 2020). Future research on
social-ecological landscape permeability for wildlife should include the
incorporation of detailed land cover covariates, in-depth quantification
of tolerance and experience as spatial proxies for behaviors, and
testing of GPS collar data across RSF- and SSF-informed
social-ecological least cost corridor models.