  The establishment of protected areas or parks has become an important tool
for wildlife conservation. However, frequent occurrences of human-wildlife
conflict at the edges of these parks can undermine their conservation goals.
Many African protected areas have experienced concurrent declines of apex
predators alongside increases in both baboon abundance and the density of
humans living near the park boundary. Baboons then take excursions outside of
the park to raid crops for food, conflicting with the human population. We
model the interactions of mesopredators (baboons), apex predators and shared
prey in the park to analyze how four components affect the proportion of time
that mesopredators choose to crop-raid: 1) the presence of apex predators; 2)
nutritional quality of the crops; 3) mesopredator "shyness" about leaving the
park; and 4) human hunting of mesopredators. We predict that the presence of
apex predators in the park is the most effective method for controlling
mesopredator abundance, and hence significantly reduces their impact on crops.
Human hunting of mesopredators is less effective as it only occurs during
crop-raiding excursions. Furthermore, making crops less attractive, for
instance by planting crops further from the park boundary or farming less
nutritional crops, can reduce the amount of time mesopredators crop-raid.
