Abstract
AbstractHuman‐wildlife conflict represents a substantial threat to rural livelihoods and species persistence. Directed harassment (i.e., hazing) is one method for mitigating conflict, though gauging its effectiveness is often complicated by a lack of replication, controls, or effective contrasts. Herein we assessed whether African lions (Panthera leo) shifted their space use in response to a hazing program intended to deter lions from community lands adjacent to Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Using GPS‐collared lions (n = 16) from unique prides, we investigated the degree to which individuals exhibited (a) a large‐scale response by shifting their home ranges away from community lands, or (b) a fine‐scale response by increasingly avoiding areas near households post‐program initiation. Responses between “at‐risk” (those exposed to the program; n = 5) and “protected” (n = 11) lions varied, with at‐risk males shifting their home ranges to include 12.08% more national park and 9.04% less community lands post‐program (median), a shift not replicated by at‐risk females nor protected lions. However, the majority of at‐risk lions demonstrated increased attraction to households post‐program. We demonstrated that while aversive stimulus approaches may alter large‐scale space use by individual lions, constraints imposed by social structure and available habitat alternatives will affect the level of effort required to achieve program success.
Highlights
The tradeoff between reward versus risk, or food versus safety, is a primary driver of animal behavior and space use decisions (Brown, 1999; Lima & Dill, 1990)
We focused on African lions, our findings help elucidate general mechanisms underpinning animal responses to fearinducing stimuli, and our analytical framework is readily adaptable to other species where evaluation of interventionspecific changes in animal behavior is of interest
Our approach provided a formal and comprehensive framework for assessing the impacts of a wildlife-conflict mitigation effort, we recognize that larger sample sizes will be necessary to fully evaluate the long-term implications of hazing programs for lions and other large carnivores
Summary
We investigated the degree to which individual lions adopted risk-sensitive behaviors following program inception, namely (a) large-scale spatial avoidance (a shift of seasonal home range to include more of the “protected” park), or (b) small-scale spatiotemporal avoidance via (a) avoiding households or (b) approaching households, but under greater vegetation cover or increasingly in nocturnal hours (i.e., behavioral modification [Frid & Dill, 2002; Gaynor et al, 2019]), with or without a large-scale shift in home range placement. We focused on African lions, our findings help elucidate general mechanisms underpinning animal responses to fearinducing stimuli, and our analytical framework is readily adaptable to other species where evaluation of interventionspecific changes in animal behavior is of interest
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