Spotted hyaenas are among the most misunderstood and unloved carnivores in the world. These extremely intelligent, opportunistic and curious animals are often killed on farms in response to livestock losses or supposed conflict, but also because they are perceived as vermin. As a result, the species is declining throughout Africa. Namibia experienced a dramatic population drop of nearly 65% in 20 years, particularly on farmlands outside protected areas (2,000-3,000 animals in 1998 to about 615-715 in 2019). Unless effective and properly implemented conflict mitigation methods are used, hyaena populations outside protected areas will continue to decline in Namibia due to conflict with farmers. If nation-wide policies and perceptions are not changed soon, we could see the Namibian spotted hyaena population decline to near unrecoverable numbers. Our research over the past four years in southern Namibia along the Namib-Naukluft National Park border has therefore focused on understanding spotted hyaena behaviour and ecology to develop ways to reduce livestock losses and thus promote coexistence between farmers and hyaenas. Many freehold and communal farmers in Namibia use fences and/or holding pens (kraals) for livestock protection and overnight containment, respectively. But many of these fences and barriers are inadequate for keeping carnivores out and thus do not reduce the likelihood of losing livestock. To address this problem we redesigned the standard fences used on farms to create more effective barriers between livestock and spotted hyaenas by preventing hyaenas from digging under the fences to gain access to livestock. Because investing in a long-term solution is more cost-effective than continually fixing the same problem, we aimed to develop a lower-cost and therefore attractive means of keeping hyaenas away from livestock on both freehold and communal farms. We repurposed old fencing materials removed from a de-stocked sheep farm, which significantly reduced the cost of our new fence design by simply using what is already available on most farms.