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VIRTUAL FENCING, A CONSERVATION GRAZE-CHANGER?

This post is greater than 6 months old - links may be broken or out of date.
Proceed with caution!

By Kelly Hunt, Assistant Ranger, Stour Valley


(Kelly Hunt)

Rewilding seems to be a buzz word for conservationists at the moment, for those
in favour and those against. However, the benefits of landscape scale management
and connectivity of habitats that are resulting from rewilding seem to be common
ambitions for conservation organisations abandoning the traditional intensive
habitat management to maintain populations of less abundance species in
increasingly isolated pockets. Projects such as the Tauros genetic manipulation
and introduction project by Rewilding Europe are working towards having large
roaming grazers as part of their habitat restoration and connection. However,
globally conflict has continuously arisen between humans and wildlife on
boundaries between the two, especially as both groups are battling for space and
resources.

The satellite image shown on the Nofence app. The white dots are placed by the
operator to dictate the location and formation of the virtual paddock and any
exclusion zones (Kelly Hunt)

Virtual Fencing collars, only currently imported to the UK by Nofence, could
provide precision control over grazing patterns while simultaneously reducing
staff labour requirements. Thus this could be a key tool to reducing
human-wildlife conflicts and making replication of free-roaming large grazers to
obtain heterogeneity achievable. There are currently approximately 4,000 collars
in use in the UK having become increasingly popular over the last four years on
goats, sheep, and cattle.

The flexibility in grazing rotations provided by these collars and the often
smaller herds of livestock in conservation contexts makes the initial investment
in the technology affordable and means they are primarily used by conservation
organisations such as the National Trust in the UK1.

The collars register virtual paddocks dictated by the handler on the Nofence app
via the 2G and 4G mobile network. GPS location of all collars is communicated to
the Nofence platform every 15 minutes via satellites.

Collars were placed upon 6 Cotswold sheep, used to graze the schedule ancient
monument Double Dykes, marking the entrance of the Hengistbury Head Nature
Reserve peninsula. (Kelly Hunt)

Initially the collars work using Operant Conditioning, a simple negative stimuli
is associated with a neutral stimuli to reduce an undesirable behavioural
response. As the animal fitted with the collar approaches a virtual boundary of
a paddock the collar is assigned to, the collar will emit an auditory tone. As
the individual continues in its trajectory over the boundary the frequency of
the tone increases at a volume of 82dB (a standard conversation sits at
approximately 60dB). After a further ~6 metres a single electric shock is
delivered and a notification is sent to any devices logged onto the app. If they
continue on their path out of the virtual paddock, the ‘audity-shock pattern’
repeats 2 more times, at which point a safety mechanism prevents any more shocks
and an ‘escaped animal’ notification is sent to the app. The GPS tracking
feature can then be used to collect the escapee.

If the animal turns back to the virtual paddock the sound cue stops and no shock
is given, thus the animal associates an electric shock with the sound cue, and
by turning around when hearing the noise they can avoid it.

The Trial: Could Virtual Fencing help bring Baa-ck rare breeds in a conservation
context?

The collars were placed on 6 sheep during their time grazing some small paddocks
of wet grassland along the River Stour. Having trialled the collars over 42
days, the sheep were moved through 4 different virtual paddock setups with
increasing complexity in shape and an increase in the number of exclusion zones.

If the sheep did not successfully learn how to navigate the virtual paddocks
using just the auditory cues and avoiding the negative stimulus, there would be
a 1:1 ratio of shocks and pulses. Over the 42 days there were a total of 61
electric shocks delivered to the flock. Over 50% of these were within the first
two days and no shocks were given to any individuals throughout the last two
weeks of the trial. A total of 994 audio cues were given to the flock over the
same period. Therefore, 6% of the virtual boundary challenges by the sheep
resulted in an electric shock, the majority of which occurred in the first two
days during the training period. Therefore the rate of learning by the sheep was
much quicker than predicted.

The total number of electric shocks and sound cues given to the entire flock
each day over the trial period. The number of auditory cues stay relatively
stable on average. The number of electric shocks given drop. The spike on day 23
indicates their return to a familiar physical paddock to the sheep but with a
different virtual paddock setup, thus provided a greater challenge for them to
navigate initially (Kelly Hunt) Heat map of flock activity within the virtual
paddock showing no movement outside of the boundary (Kelly Hunt)

Heatmaps of animal movements, locations and times of sound and electric stimuli
given, and activity levels of individuals can be obtained from the Nofence app
and the nofence.no platform.

By the end of the trial, the sheep were successfully grazing in paddocks with
incomplete physical fencing or a lack of fencing all together, relying
completely on the virtual fencing to keep the sheep out of the river and its
riparian area.

Public Opinion

During discussions with land managers, the concern of public opinion around the
use of electric shocks for animal training, especially following the banning of
electric dog collars in Wales and largely frowned upon in England and Scotland,
was repeatedly mentioned and seemed a significant barrier to introducing the
technology despite potential significant benefits to management of the habitats.

80 visitors to the Stour Valley Nature Reserve were interviewed and an
explanation of the technology was given. Each participant was asked a range of
questions to gauge their ethical views of the use of this technology and the use
of electric shocks for training of the livestock.

(Kelly Hunt)



Although some respondents were against the use of electric shocks, more than
half did understand the practical use of electric fencing in general. The
majority of those interviewed saw a greater benefit of the Nofence technology
compared to a standard electric fence often used in agricultural settings.
Examples of benefits given included; a single pulse administered by the collars
compared to a current given by the fence, the design of the collars’ technology
preventing misuse or treatment by the handler towards the livestock, and the
absence of barbed wire or electric fencing for animals to get tangled in and
give the opportunity to escape predators.

Due to land managers’ concerns of public perception, it was stated that they
often adapted their language depending on the demographic they are speaking to.
To determine the impacts of the terms used to describe the technology, 40
members of the public were given the explanation and questionnaire using the
word ‘shock’ to describe the negative stimuli given, while 40 experienced the
word ‘pulse’.

Surprisingly, there was no difference in the answers given by the members of the
public in relation to their ethical opinions of livestock receiving electric
shocks, preferred fencing types used on reserves, or acceptable strengths of
electric stimuli given between the two groups. When asked what term was most
accurate and which they would like to be used, each group preferred the term
used within their own survey, either buzz or shock.

The background knowledge of the members of the public of conservation or
agricultural topics had a greater influence on the responses given to questions.

Responses given by members of the public when asked what types of fencing they
would prefer to see used on nature reserves that grazed livestock. Responses
were overall positive towards the use of virtual fencing due to significant
benefits to wildlife, livestock and countryside staff (Kelly Hunt)

Land Manager Surveys

Over 60% of conservation land managers surveyed had habitats on their reserves
they wanted to graze but could not due to conflicts with right of way access,
protected status of the land (e.g. protected scheduled ancient monument), and
where it was impractical to install physical fencing. With the assistance of
Nofence technology, four of these would be able to graze those habitats.

All of the Nofence users would recommend the use of virtual fencing to other
land managers looking to introduce or expand their livestock grazing. The
flexibility and reduced staff labour requirements were the greatest advantages,
significantly aiding in control of grazing rotations, exclusion of grazing of
rare or toxic plants, and the monetary and resource saving in fencing
maintenance.

Reserve managers also found a benefit in placing QR codes provided by the
Nofence app, which when scanned on entrance notice boards by the public will
produce a visual map of the current virtual paddock and how to avoid the
livestock if they desire. The greatest common challenges were the initial
monetary investment and issues with efficiency if the local 2G and 4G mobile
networks were unstable which led to delays in registering collars to new
paddocks.

The strength of Nofence collars are approximately 1/6th the strength of a
standard electric fence used for livestock. Many livestock managers having seen
the effectiveness of the collars at a fraction of the stimulus strength and
therefore promote the ethical advantages of using the collars, now stating
standard agricultural electric fencing as excessive.

Responses given by conservation land managers, both users and non-users of
Nofence virtual fencing collars (Kelly Hunt)

Potentials

The flexibility and intricate control of grazing provided by virtual fencing
technology can provide an invaluable tool to aid conservation land managers in
introducing conservation grazing to their reserves to reduce the burden on staff
and budgets by reducing machinery use but also to reduce conflicts with members
of the public.

These collars could prevent conflicts such as livestock collisions with cars in
areas utilised by commoners such as in the New Forest. This concept could be
further developed to aid in reintroduction efforts of more primitive ruminants
such as bison or Asian buffalo, using virtual boundaries to keep them from
damaging local properties, avoid roads, and they can be tracked for population
control and welfare checks.

For more details or for the full report please feel free to contact me at
kelly_hunt1@outlook.com or through facebook @JustRangerThings

Thanks to Tony Waterhouse from SRUC and Synne Foss Budal from Nofence for their
support with this research.

References

1 The National Trust (2021) Cattle grazing returns to Studland Heath. Available
at:
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/studland-bay/features/cattle-grazing-returns-to-studland-heath.
[Accessed 25/06/2021].

More from BCP Council


More on:

 * research
 * conservation grazing
 * BCP Council
 * landscape management

Posted On: 11/07/2022


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