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Virtual Fence Could Modernize the Old West
Hugh Pickens writes "For more than a century, ranchers in the West have kept cattle in place with fences of barbed wire, split wood and, more recently, electrified wires. Now, animal science researchers with the Department of Agriculture are working on a system that will allow cowboys to herd their cattle remotely via radio by singing commands and whispering into their ears and tracking movements by satellite and computer. A video of Dean Anderson, a researcher at the USDA's Jornada Experimental Range at Las Cruces, NM., shows how he has built radios that attach to an animal's head that allow a person at the other end to issue a range of commands — gentle singing, sharp commands, or a buzz like a bee or snake — to get the cattle to move where one wants them to. Anderson says it would cost $900 today to put a radio device on one head of cattle, but he says costs will fall and the entire herd wouldn't have to be outfitted, just the 'leaders.' Much of the research has focused on how cattlemen can identify which cattle in their herds are the ones that the others follow."
"working on a system that will allow cowboys to herd their cattle remotely via radio by singing commands and whispering into their ears and tracking movements by satellite and computer"
Looks like they're finally re-adapting that technology once reserved only for our most esteemed government leaders ;)
The animal trials usually come before the human trials -- but I don't know if I'd consider any of our current heads of state still "human" ...
I used to work with cattle on my uncle's farm when I was a kid. They are dumb animals. They do dumb things. Anytime you try to move them, they do all kinds of stupid shit. I've seen them get "trapped" in fencing, in ditches, even in bushes and trees. So, here we have a system, which costs $900 for every cow it's put on (and that "just put it on the leaders" line sounds like wishful thinking to me). If it has some sort of mechanical malfunction or loses signal in some mountain pass, you could lose a lot of cattle. If you move the cattle and some of them get trapped in a ditch/underbursh/etc., you could lose a lot of cattle (since no actual person will be there to see it and help them). And if the cows simply ignore or get confused by the signal you're sending them, you could lose a lot of cattle. And every cow lost is a lot of money lost.
Basically, this seems to me like a very high tech, expensive way to so something that's much more effectively and economically done the old-fashioned way. Ranch-hands are relatively cheap, smart, and effective. And handful of good cowboys can move a surprisingly large herd.
This new system, by contrast, sounds unreliable, dumb, and VERY expensive. When you're talking huge herds, $900 a head is a LOT of money. Even $900 a "leader" is a LOT of money. Certainly, its tracking function would be useful to keep an eye on the herd (but I think they already have those sorts of systems already). But the idea that you can move cattle remotely with the push of a button, with no actual cowboys on hand, seems to me like the dream of someone who has never actually worked with the smelly, stupid things.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All these Bluetooth wearing peoples existence becomes clear...they were the prototype for Cattle management. Truly the work has flipped upside down. I would love to see Rattlesnake, Bee, growling pumped into those things while people cruised around.
How much bovine stupidity can be attributed to human preferences? Have we bred cattle to make them more stupid? I'm sure wild bison and buffaloes are a lot sharper. I expect it's our fault; when did you last send back a steak in a restaurant because it wasn't intelligent enough?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com