African rangelands support substantial wildlife populations alongside pastoralists and livestock. Recent wildlife declines are often attributed to competition with livestock over water and grazing, in part because livestock are thought to spatially displace wildlife. However, more evidence is needed to understand this interaction and inform rangeland management. Here, we analysed the temporal overlap between wildlife and livestock at water points in a community‐governed area of Kenya's South Rift Valley, which is a dry season refuge where Maasai pastoralists, livestock and wildlife co‐occur. We used camera traps to capture images at water points in two time periods: first, when nearby settlements were unoccupied, and second, as people and their herds moved into the area. We measured wildlife activity (independent detections per hour) and the difference in temporal overlap between livestock and wildlife. We found no evidence that daily wildlife activity declined despite increased human and livestock settlement. However, temporal partitioning between livestock and wildlife at watering points increased with wildlife using water resources more at night. Maasai corral livestock overnight to protect them from predation, allowing wildlife to persist in a livestock‐dominated landscape. Our study demonstrates humans and wildlife co‐adapting to mitigate competition for shared water resources, thereby facilitating spatial coexistence.

Conservation in the human-dominated Anthropocene involves negotiations among diverse stakeholders. However, these stakeholder inclusion schemes are often superficial, leading to unsuccessful interventions. Here we apply the theory of multinaturalism as an operational starting point for stakeholder engagement efforts, to deepen local involvement and work towards coexistence. Multinaturalism posits that natures are multiple and can be known in many ways, and that many natures can coexist in the same geographical space. Using the northern jaguar population in the US-Mexico borderlands as a case study, we investigate, through semi-structured interviews, the natural realities (‘natures’) of various stakeholders involved in borderland jaguar conservation. We define a nature as an individual’s or group’sperceptions, knowledge, values, attitudes, and actionstowards jaguars. We construct each stakeholder group’s natural reality of this jaguar population through applied thematic analysis, and we identify which aspects of stakeholders’ natures are similar and different, particularly across the international border. For example, we found that many conservationists and activists value the jaguar as an apex predator because its presence signifies ecosystem health and balance, while some ranchers hold existence value for the jaguar’s power and beauty, but resent its role as a predator, due to potential for conflict with livestock. This information provides a greater understanding of differences in realities that may cause conflicts over wildlife-related decisions, and can be used by local conservation actors to facilitate collaboration in a complex transboundary region. This interdisciplinary study highlights the importance of investigating the human dimensions of conservation completely, while treating all forms of knowledge about nature seriously and equally. Due to the unique nature of human-wildlife interactions, each conservation situation requires bespoke consideration, and particularly in diverse landscapes, a multinatural approach offers a novel path towards sustainable human-wildlife coexistence.

Although cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus were once widespread in the Horn of Africa, their presence in Somaliland has not been confirmed since 2010, and they have been presumed extirpated in recent years. During 2021–2022 the Cheetah Conservation Fund and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change in Somaliland carried out two rapid surveys in the Awdal region of western Somaliland to investigate the status of the cheetah in this area. The team collected socio-ecological data from 26 villages for a total of 13 days. In both years people from most villages reported sightings of cheetahs, and the team also received multiple reports of predation on small livestock (sheep and goats) by cheetahs. We also investigated two reports of recent cheetah presence. This led to finding a set of confirmed cheetah tracks, which we followed for > 250 m, and two large feline scrapes, both approximately the size expected of a cheetah. In 2020 and 2022 we received direct evidence of cheetah presence in the form of mature cheetah carcasses. In the first instance the cheetah was reported as having been shot in defence of livestock, and in the second instance two cheetahs were apparently poison-baited. Both reports were accompanied by photographic records. This combination of social and ecological data means that we can confirm the recent presence of wild cheetahs in western Somaliland. We will now prioritize work with local communities to understand and mitigate human–cheetah conflict and continue to investigate the distribution of cheetahs throughout Somaliland.

African Journal of Wildlife Research is a multidisciplinary journal that has been published since 1971 and covers the scientific, applied, managerial, methodological, and sociological issues related to wildlife research.

Diverse individual energy-budgeting tactics within wild populations provide resilience to natural fluctuations in food availability and expenditure costs. Although substantial heterogeneity in activity-related energy expenditure has been documented, few studies differentiate between responses to the environment and inter-individual differences stemming from life history, allometry, or somatic stores. Using tri-axial accelerometry, complemented by diet analysis, we investigated inter-individual within-season variation in overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA; activity intensity measure) and “Activity” (above an ODBA threshold) in a high-density population of European badgers (Meles meles). Weather (including wind speed) affected ODBA and activity according to predictors of earthworm (food) availability and cooling potential. In spring, maximal ODBA expenditure at intermediate rainfall and temperature values suggested that badgers traded foraging success against thermoregulatory losses, where lower-condition badgers maintained higher spring ODBA irrespective of temperature while badgers in better body condition reduced ODBA at colder temperatures. Conversely, in summer, lower-condition badgers modulated ODBA according to temperature, likely in response to super-abundant food supply. Between 35% (spring, summer) and 57% (autumn) of residual total daily ODBA variance related to inter-individual differences unexplained by seasonal predictors, suggesting within-season tactical activity typologies. We propose that this heterogeneity among individual energy-expenditure profiles may contribute to population resilience under rapid environmental change.