Cattle grazing with virtual fencing has potential to create wildfire fuel breaks, OSU study says

 The use of virtual fencing to manage cattle grazing on sagebrush rangelands has the potential to create fuel breaks needed to help fight wildfires, a recent Oregon State University and U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service study found.

Virtual fencing involves placing collars on livestock. The collars communicate with GPS and reception towers to form a virtual fence set by the rancher. Auditory stimuli emit from the collar when the livestock reach the limit of the virtual fence and they receive a benign shock if they pass the fence limit.

“We’re seeing the challenge related to wildfires that land managers, particularly on public lands, are facing in the western U.S.,” said David Bohnert, director of OSU’s Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center in Burns. “They just don’t have the tools to manage those public lands in a way that is timely, particularly related to wildfire. This new study should help begin to change that.”

...The findings complement a growing body of evidence that indicate virtual fencing can successfully be used for a variety of livestock management applications, said Chad Boyd, a research leader for the Agricultural Research Service in Burns who has a courtesy appointment at Oregon State.

Additional research underway by the authors is evaluating the ability of virtual fencing to keep cattle out of riparian areas to protect critical salmon and steelhead spawning habitat. They also are studying the potential to mitigate wildfire risk by identifying high fuel load areas on rangelands through remote sensing and then strategically employing virtual fencing and grazing to meet fuel management objectives...MORE