Virtual fence could modernize the Old West Dean Anderson insists he doesn't want to put cowboys out of business. But he would like to see them get more indoor work. Anderson, an animal science researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is working on a system that will allow cowboys to herd their cattle remotely by singing commands and whispering into Bessie's ears via radio and tracking her movements by satellite and computer. "I could be sitting in my office here and programming cows in Mongolia. It's not technologically impossible," says Anderson. The technology isn't exactly ready yet, but Anderson and others involved in researching the concept of "virtual fencing" of cattle and other livestock say it is getting close. "It's not a silver bullet," he insists. "You're not going to spend a year in Mazatlan and run your cows by computer. You need to have a human on the ground." No kidding, says Gary Morton, who runs 2,000 head of yearling cattle at Valles Caldera in the Jemez Mountains range of northern New Mexico. "They've been saying cowboys and the way we do business is dying for the last 100 years," Morton says. "But we're still around."....