Click the link to read the article on the KSL.com website (Amy Joi O’Donoghue). Here’s an excerpt:
September 23, 2024
The Eagle County Conservation District will receive $994,437 over three years to expand virtual fencing for cattle grazing on Bureau of Land Management lands in Colorado. Virtual fencing — which the bureau has pioneered on public lands — is a way to improve rangeland health and drought resilience using rancher-led innovation and technology to set boundaries on grazing areas instead of physical fences, which are challenging to maintain. The foundation said that by keeping livestock contained to specific areas, virtual fences provide real-time data on the location of cattle and support active, rotational grazing to help prevent soil erosion. Virtual fencing also supports range restoration activities that improve rangeland health and drought resilience outcomes…According to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, virtual fencing involves the absence of physical barriers to restrict cattle’s movement. The cattle wear a GPS collar that tracks movement and if a wayward animal crosses the “barrier,” it receives a series of auditory beeps to deter it from advancing. If that does not work, the animal receives a benign shock.
“Cattle have demonstrated the ability and tendency to rapidly learn the virtual fencing cues, eventually responding to the audio cue alone,” the federal agency said. “Several studies have documented success with sheep and goats as well.”
In its first year, the project will:
- Expand range restoration activities on ground covered by virtual fencing, combined with monitoring of range health, to track anticipated improvements in water and soil quality.
- Introduce virtual fencing and rotational grazing to Bocco Mountain in northwest Colorado, which has not been utilized by cattle in more than 30 years due to lack of fencing infrastructure.
- Provide staff and equipment to scale the project to include more ranchers and bureau grazing lessees.