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Monitoring African buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ) and cattle ( Bos taurus ) movement across a damaged veterinary control fence at a Southern African wildlife/livestock interface
Author(s) -
Chigwenhese Leoba,
Murwira Amon,
Zengeya Fadzai M.,
Masocha Mhosisi,
GarineWichatitsky Michel,
Caron Alexandre
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
african journal of ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.499
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1365-2028
pISSN - 0141-6707
DOI - 10.1111/aje.12288
Subject(s) - fence (mathematics) , livestock , wildlife , veterinary medicine , fencing , geography , zoology , biology , ecology , forestry , engineering , medicine , structural engineering , parallel computing , computer science
We test the extent to which fence damage or fence permeability (resulting from human and elephant damage) influences patterns of cattle and buffalo movement at the periphery of Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe. We used spoor data to detect and compare the frequency of cattle and buffalo movement across the fence boundary. Results show that spoor proportions for cattle were significantly higher on fence partially damaged by humans than buffalo spoor. Conversely, buffalo spoor proportions were significantly higher on sections with totally removed fence as a result of elephant damage. Results suggest that cattle and buffalo use different sections of the damaged fence.