The temporal environmental correlates of spotted hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ) encounters with livestock enclosures: Insights from central Kenya

Abstract Livestock depredation by carnivores is a major challenge for both livestock‐keeping communities and carnivore conservation worldwide. Quantitative depredation risk models can help predict time periods of increased depredation risk, supporting livestock protection efforts. These models are most often based on correlations between environmental variables, such as weather patterns and phases of the moon in the case of temporal models, and recorded livestock deaths. However, livestock deaths represent the endpoint of a complex sequence of behavioral interactions between carnivores and livestock, known as the livestock depredation process. By incorporating the full livestock depredation process into depredation risk models, we can improve model predictive power and increase our understanding of carnivore‐livestock interactions. Doing so, however, requires a greater knowledge of the early stages of the livestock depredation process, such as initial encounters between carnivores and livestock, which are currently understudied. In this study, we focus on spotted hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ) encounters with livestock enclosures (bomas) in central Kenya. We deployed camera traps around 12 bomas between August 2018 and September 2019, recording 151 boma‐nights with one or more hyena encounters (defined as a hyena appearing within the camera viewshed outside the boma). Encounters were more likely to occur during months of higher rainfall (Odds ratio (OR) = 1.005 per additional millimeter of monthly rainfall) and on nights when a smaller fraction of the moon was illuminated (OR = 0.430 comparing full moon to new moon). We found moderate evidence for encounters aligning with the darkest periods within a night. Finally, encounters tended to occur in the later, potentially cooler, periods of hotter nights. To our knowledge, this study presents one of the most comprehensive analyses of how temporal environmental variables correlate with close‐range carnivore‐livestock encounters in any depredation system, contributing to a limited knowledge base on carnivore behavior in the early stages of depredation.