Water and cattle shape habitat selection by wild herbivores at the edge of a protected area

Abstract

Understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of human-wildlife interfaces is important for the sustainable management of protected areas and wildlife conservation. We investigated the drivers of domestic and wild herbivore habitat selection at the edge of an unfenced protected area adjacent to Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. We used GPS data to quantify the movement patterns of elephant bulls, buffalo and cattle at multiple scales and according to seasonal changes of surface water availability. Cattle, elephant and buffalo prefer open grassland habitats found close to water but elephant and buffalo avoid cattle differently. During the rainy season, cattle enter the protected area daily; buffalo avoid cattle completely at the home range scale, whereas elephant bulls avoid cattle at finer scales by favoring temporal niche shift. Elephant bulls avoid direct encounters with cattle (or people) during the day but come closer to the boundary and to water at night when cattle are kept in enclosures close to the homesteads. During the dry season, when cattle range further into the protected area in search of forage, buffalo and cattle spatial overlap increases as water dependence takes precedence over avoidance. Elephant bulls range closer to the boundary at night and increase the number of excursions into the Communal Area. Cattle herding creates a buffer zone between wildlife areas and human settlements because wild herbivores strongly avoid livestock and people. However, avoidance only lasts as long as resources are abundant. Our study suggests that long-term planning of both artificial water provisioning and traditional cattle herding practices could help maintaining spatial segregation and thus mitigate conservation conflicts such as pathogen transmission, crop raiding or livestock depredation.

Modeling community occupancy from line transect data: a case study with large mammals in post‐war Angola

“…To the contrary, elephants were the only species associated with higher precipitation areas (i.e. its 50% CI did not include 0), an expected result given their demonstrated water dependence (Valls-Fox et al, 2018).…”

Conservation from the inside‐out: Winning space and a place for wildlife in working landscapes

“…Scale and mobility in increasing functional heterogeneity also facilitate coexistence between livestock and wildlife by increasing foraging options, minimizing competition (Fynn et al, ; Tyrrell, Russell, & Western, ) and expanding the scope for the spatial and temporal separation of wildlife and livestock. Temporal separation in turn reduces pathogen transmission, crop‐raiding and livestock depredation (Valls‐Fox et al, ; Western, ).…”

Movement ecology of large herbivores in African savannas: current knowledge and gaps

“…Buffalo herds in Hwange National Park remained close to water through the dry season, and sometimes drank twice per day both in the early morning and at dusk (Valls-Fox et al 2018). At the other extreme, gemsbok in the Kalahari region fitted with GPS collars rarely visited places where water was available, except during an extremely dry year (Boyers 2019).…”

“…Kruger National Park animals(Valls-Fox et al 2018). In the Schwelle region of Botswana, gemsbok Oryx gazella, but not wildebeest, became proportionately more active at night during the hot dry season than during the cooler months(Boyers 2019).…”