Fencing is increasingly used in wildlife conservation. Keeping wildlife segregated from local communities, while permitting wildlife access to the greater landscape matrix is a complex task. We investigated the effectiveness of specially designed fence-gaps on animal movement at a Kenyan rhinoceros conservancy, using camera-traps over a four-year period. The fence-gap design restricted the movement of black (Diceris bicornis) and white rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum simum) but permitted the movement of other species. We documented over 6000 crossing events of over 50 000 individuals which used the fence-gaps to enter or leave the conservancy. We recorded 37 mammal species and two species of bird using the fence-gaps. We conclude that this fence-gap design is effective at restricting rhinoceros movement and at permitting other wildlife movement into and out of the conservancy. We recommend that fenced-in rhinoceros conservancies that desire enhanced connectivity consider this fence-gap design to help reconnect their reserves to the outside landscape matrix while continuing to provide enhanced protection for their rhinoceroses.

Conservation policy and practice can sometimes run counter to their mutual aims of ensuring species survival. In Kenya, where threatened predators such as lion deplete endangered prey such as Grevy’s zebra, conservation practitioners seek to ensure species success through exclusive strategies of protection, population increase and preservation. We found strong selection for the endangered Grevy’s zebra by both lion and hyena on two small fenced conservancies in Kenya. Despite abundant diversity of available prey, Grevy’s zebra were selected disproportionately more than their availability, while other highly available species such as buffalo were avoided. Lions were therefore not alone in presenting a credible threat to Grevy’s zebra survival. Conservation practitioners must consider interlinked characteristics of prey selection, resource availability and quality, the interplay between carnivore guild members and landscape scale population trends performance in wildlife management decisions.

The use of fences to segregate wildlife can change predator and prey behaviour. Predators can learn to incorporate fencing into their hunting strategies and prey can learn to avoid foraging near fences. A twelve-strand electric predator-proof fence surrounds our study site. There are also porous one-strand electric fences used to create exclosures where elephant (and giraffe) cannot enter in order to protect blocs of browse vegetation for two critically endangered species, the black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) and the Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi). The denser vegetation in these exclosures attracts both browsing prey and ambush predators. In this study we examined if lion predation patterns differed near the perimeter fencing and inside the elephant exclosures by mapping the location of kills. We used a spatial analysis to compare the predation patterns near the perimeter fencing and inside the exclosures to predation in the rest of the conservancy. Predation was not over-represented near the perimeter fence but the pattern of predation near the fence suggests that fences may be a contributing factor to predation success. Overall, we found that predation was over-represented inside and within 50 m of the exclosures. However, by examining individual exclosures in greater detail using a hot spot analysis, we found that only a few exclosures contained lion predation hot spots. Although some exclosures provide good hunting grounds for lions, we concluded that exclosures did not necessarily create prey-traps per se and that managers could continue to use this type of exclusionary fencing to protect stands of dense vegetation.

Protecting an endangered and highly poached species can conflict with providing an open and ecologically connected landscape for coexisting species. In Kenya, about half of the black rhino (Diceros bicornis) live in electrically fenced private conservancies. Purpose-built fence-gaps permit some landscape connectivity for elephant while restricting rhino from escaping. We monitored the usage patterns at these gaps by motion-triggered cameras and found high traffic volumes and predictable patterns of prey movement. The prey-trap hypothesis (PTH) proposes that predators exploit this predictable prey movement. We tested the PTH at two semi-porous reserves using two different methods: a spatial analysis and a temporal analysis. Using spatial analysis, we mapped the location of predation events with GPS and looked for concentration of kill sites near the gaps as well as conducting clustering and hot spot analysis to determine areas of statistically significant predation clustering. Using temporal analysis, we examined the time lapse between the passage of prey and predator and searched for evidence of active prey seeking and/or predator avoidance. We found no support for the PTH and conclude that the design of the fence-gaps is well suited to promoting connectivity in these types of conservancies.

Wildlife fencing has become more prevalent throughout Africa, although it has come with a price of increased habitat fragmentation and loss of habitat connectivity. In an effort to increase connectivity, managers of fenced conservancies can place strategic gaps along the fences to allow wildlife access to outside habitat, permitting exploration, dispersal and seasonal migration. Wildlife can become accustomed to certain movement pathways and can show fidelity to these routes over many years, even at the path level. Our study site has three dedicated wildlife crossings (fence-gaps) in its 142 km perimeter fence, and we continuously monitor these fence-gaps with camera-traps. We monitored one fence-gap before and after a 1.49 km fence section was completely removed and 6.8 km was reconfigured to leave only a two-strand electric fence meant to exclude elephant and giraffe, all other species being able to cross under the exclusionary fence. The removal and reconfiguration of the fence effectively rendered this fence-gap (which was left in place structurally) as a “ghost” fence-gap, as wildlife now had many options along the 8.29 km shared border to cross into the neighboring habitat. Although we documented some decline in the number of crossing events at the ghost-gap, surprisingly, 19 months after the total removal of the fence, we continued to document the usage of this crossing location by wildlife including by species that had not been previously detected at this location. We discuss potential drivers of this persistent and counterintuitive behavior as well as management implications.