Fence Ecology Resources
In many parts of the world, fences are a significant barrier to wildlife movement. Connectivity conservation includes efforts to understand the impacts of fences on the landscape and avoid, minimize, and mitigation those impacts. Following is a collection of resources related to this important topic:
General:
Unnatural Barriers: How the Boom in Fences Is Harming Wildlife
From the U.S. West to Mongolia, fences are going up rapidly as border barriers and livestock farming increase. Now, a growing number of studies are showing the impact of these fences, from impeding wildlife migrations to increasing the genetic isolation of threatened species…
Fence Ecology: Frameworks for Understanding the Ecological Effects of Fences
Investigations of the links between human infrastructure and ecological change have provided eye-opening insights into humanity’s environmental impacts and contributed to global environmental policies. This paper provides a systematic literature review on the ecological effects of fences and provides five major takeaways or lessons
Minding the boundary: social–ecological contexts for fence ecology and management
Fencing is a globally ubiquitous yet largely underestimated human infrastructure. To date, most fencing-related research and management has focused on its biophysical outcomes. However, fencing is often part of coupled human and natural systems, and inevitably affects social and ecological dynamics and the links between them. Drawing from three key case studies in the US, China, and South Africa, this paper delineates five social pathways through which fencing shapes social–ecological dynamics in a landscape.
Fencing is a nearly ubiquitous infrastructure that influences landscapes across space and time, and the impact of fences on wildlife and ecosystems is of global concern. Yet the prevalence and commonness of fences has contributed to their “invisibility” and a lack of attention in research and conservation, resulting in a scarcity of empirical data regarding their effects. Stakeholders, including scientists, conservationists, resource managers, and private landholders, have limited understanding of how fences affect individual animals, populations, or ecosystem processes. To better understand and manage fence effects on wildlife and ecosystems, we advocate for an expanded effort to examine all aspects of fence ecology: the empirical investigation of the interactions between fences, wildlife, ecosystems, and societal needs.
Disentangling the complexity of fence effects on wildlife and ecosystems
Fence ecology is a relatively new field that has great potential for influencing policies and practices around conservation, livelihoods, and political boundaries. In fact, ecology publications with titles containing “fence” or “fencing” have more than doubled in the decade since the seminal Fencing for Conservation (Hayward and Somers, 2012) was published (decade prior: 93 publications; decade post: 195 publications). The interdisciplinarity of publications presented in this Research Topic demonstrates the inherent complexity of this field and the diversity of perspectives required to assess fence effects at scale. This Research Topic will introduce readers to the breadth of research and management foci that are encompassed within fence ecology, to hopefully encourage discussion that addresses underrepresented topics and locales and fosters exciting future research.
Conservation fencing: A rapidly growing solution or a risk to wildlife?
Virtual fencing as an emerging technology for livestock management: A systematic review
Virtual fencing could provide opportunities in conservation ranching
Virtual fence: New realities beyond barbed wire
Breaking down barriers with virtual fence
Virtual Fencing: A Climate Adaptation Strategy
The ecological effects of fencing in conservation: A global review
Africa:
Effects of fences and fence gaps on the movement behavior of three southern African antelope species
Globally, migratory ungulates are affected by fences. While field observational studies reveal the amount of animal–fence interactions across taxa, GPS tracking-based studies uncover fence effects on movement patterns and habitat selection. However, studies on the direct effects of fences and fence gaps on movement behavior, especially based on high-frequency tracking data, are scarce. This study used GPS tracking on three common African antelopes and provides evidence that fences directly alter antelope movement behaviors with negative implications. The findings help to guide future animal–fence studies and provide insights for wildlife fencing and fence gap planning.
In the Maasai Mara National Reserve, a state-controlled protected area in Kenya, and in its surroundings, a particular concern in recent years has been the proliferation of fencing in what once was an open landscape. The fencing poses challenges to both wildlife and the traditional pastoralism practiced by Maasai communities, which were dependent on the presence of open communal land. The purpose of the article is to identify the root causes of the enclosure of former common land and the increasing fencing of plots of land owned by individual Maasai.
Fencing bodes a rapid collapse of the unique Greater Mara ecosystem
With land privatization and fencing of thousands of hectares of communal grazing areas, East Africa is struggling with one of the most radical cultural and environmental changes in its history. The 668,500-hectare Greater Mara is of crucial importance for the great migrations of large mammals and for Maasai pastoralist culture. However, the magnitude and pace of these fencing processes in this area are almost completely unknown. By means of a mapped series of multispectral satellite imagery, the authors provide new evidence that fencing is appropriating land in this area at an unprecedented and accelerating speed and scale.
Livestock, Wildlife and Resilient Livelihoods: Ways Forward in Namibia’s Component of KAZA
The Proceedings of the MAWLR-MEFT workshop ‘Livestock, Wildlife and Resilient Livelihoods: Ways Forward in Namibia’s Component of KAZA’ was prepared by the AHEAD programme team who drew on contributed presentations as well as discussions at the workshop.
The Role of Fencing in the Conservation of African Ungulates
Fencing for Conservation: Restriction of African Elephant Movement in Northern Botswana
Asia:
Reconsidering the efficiency of grazing exclusion using fences on the Tibetan Plateau
Grazing exclusion using fences is a key policy being applied by the Chinese government to rehabilitate degraded grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and elsewhere. However, there is a limited understanding of the effects of grazing exclusion on alpine ecosystem functions and services and its impacts on herders’ livelihoods. The paper’s meta-analyses and questionnaire-based surveys revealed the benefits and losses associated with fencing. The authors recommend that traditional free grazing should be encouraged if applicable, short-term fencing (for 4–8 years) should be adopted in severely degraded grasslands, and fencing should be avoided in key wildlife habitat areas, especially the protected large mammal species.
Impacts of Fencing on Large Herbivores in the Mongolian Steppe
North America:
A Bull Elk jumping a barbed wire fence in the Wichita Mountains, OK, USA
Fencing is a major anthropogenic feature affecting wildlife distributions and movements, but its impacts are difficult to quantify due to a widespread lack of spatial data. The authors created a fence model and compared outputs to a fence mapping approach using satellite imagery in two counties in southwest Montana, USA to advance fence data development for use in research and management. The paper provides tools for estimating fence locations, and a novel fence type assessment that demonstrates an opportunity for updated policy to encourage the adoption of “wildlife-friendlier” fencing standards to facilitate wildlife movement in the western U.S. while supporting rural livelihoods.
Barrier Behaviour Analysis (BaBA) reveals extensive effects of fencing on wide-ranging ungulates
As human activities expand globally, there is a growing need to identify and mitigate barriers to animal movements. Fencing is a pervasive human modification of the landscape that can impede the movements of wide-ranging animals. Previous research has largely focused on whether fences block movements altogether, but a more nuanced understanding of animals’ behavioural responses to fences may be critical for examining the ecological consequences and prioritizing conservation interventions. The authors developed a spatial- and temporal-explicit approach, Barrier Behaviour Analysis (BaBA, available as an r package), to examine individual-level behaviours in response to linear barriers.
Across much of the Western United States, recovery of large carnivore populations is creating new challenges for livestock producers. Reducing the risks of sharing the landscape with recovering wildlife populations is critical to private working lands, which play a vital role in securing future energy, water, food, and fiber for an ever-expanding human population. Fencing is an important mitigation practice that many ranchers, land managers, and conservationists implement to reduce carnivore-livestock conflict. While fencing strategies have been reviewed in the literature, research seldom incorporates knowledge from the people who utilize fencing the most (i.e., livestock producers). Incorporating producers and practitioners early in the process of producing scientific knowledge is proving to be a critical endeavor for enhancing knowledge exchange, better evaluation of the practice, and more realistic understanding of the costs and benefits. Here, the authors describe how a multidisciplinary effort of co-produce knowledge informs understanding of the effectiveness of various fencing designs and more importantly provides a better mechanism for transferring this knowledge between producers, researchers, and land managers.
In rewilding a pocket of pristine antelope habitat, volunteers turn to fence removal
Fences, despite having become a common part of the western landscape, have long posed a risk to wildlife. For pronghorn who are built for speed, fences shrink their extensive habitat and can be fatal when animals try to cross. But volunteers have started to make it possible for nearly 2,000 pronghorn antelope to roam on roughly 1,000 square miles of fence-free habitat. More than 300 hundred miles of fence has been removed, and volunteers are hiking deeper into the backcountry, looking to remove even more fences in the refuge along the border of northwestern Nevada.
Fencing with Wildlife in Mind (Colorado Division of Wildlife)
This publication provides guidelines and details for constructing fences with wildlife in mind. The information it contains has been contributed by wildlife managers, biologists, land managers, farmers, and ranchers. Over time, their observations and research have built a body of knowledge concerning wildlife and fences, including:
• A basic understanding of how ungulates cross fences and the fence designs that cause problems for moose, elk, deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep.
• Fence designs that adequately contain livestock without excluding wildlife.
• Fence designs that effectively exclude ungulates, bears, beavers, and other small mammals.
Fence types influence pronghorn movement responses in sagebrush steppe
A Landowner’s Guide to Wildlife Friendly Fences: How to Build Fence with Wildlife in Mind
Wildlife Fencing and Associated Measures: A Toolbox for Reducing Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions
Electric Fencing to Control Deer and Elk on Montana’s Farms and Ranches
Law and policy:
In 2023 the French government adopted a law which requires that all fences on natural lands conform to wildlife-friendly standards (i.e., a minimum of 30cm off the ground and no more than 1.2m in height) by 2027. The law provides exceptions for many cases, including heritage fences constructed more than 30 years ago; fences for national security; and agricultural fences).