MANAGING RANGELANDS WITH VIRTUAL FENCING

What if livestock could be managed and contained with minimal fencing on the landscape?

Eagle County ranchers are now using virtual fencing as a tool for adaptive grazing management to enhance rotational grazing & exclusion from sensitive areas such as burn scars and riparian zones.  

Virtual fencing, or geofencing, for cattle ranchers is a relatively new and innovative technology. Using a wireless network of GPS communication data, geofencing allows producers to draw virtual boundary lines around livestock from a computer or smartphone to enhance grazing management strategies. It gives livestock producers tremendous flexibility in how they manage and control the movement of their herds across rangelands providing many ecological benefits. 

The District’s goal  of the project is to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual fencing technology to manage livestock herds in the challenging terrain present in the mountains of western Colorado. 

Natural resource benefits of adaptive grazing management include:

• desired species composition, structure, and vigor of plant communities,
• quantity & quality of forage available for grazing, 
• quantity, quality & connectivity of food and cover available for wildlife,
• riparian and/or watershed function,
• water holding capacity in our soils
• soil health of rangelands and reduced soil erosion.