New technology called “virtual fencing” is catching on in Idaho and the West.

Virtual fencing works like an invisible fence for pets but at a much larger scale for livestock management.

“I think it’s been really beneficial and almost fun to get to do this and learn about it. It’s been a helpful tool, all in all,” said Chyenne Smith, who with her husband, Jay, runs J Lazy S Ranch in Carmen Creek, Idaho, near Salmon.

“My wife’s happy, my cows are doing good, the range is managed well, the forest and the BLM are happy, and our calf weights are up, and the market’s good, how do you do any better than that?” added Jay Smith.

Jay and Chyenne Smith worked with a research team at the University of Idaho, the Salmon-Challis National Forest and Bureau of Land Management to set up a virtual fencing project on spring, summer and fall range.

The project really shined in allowing the Smiths to graze cattle in the Diamond-Moose Allotment in the Salmon-Challis National Forest just one year after the massive Moose wildfire.

“After the Moose Fire, the standard Forest Service answer is to stay home for 2-3 years,” said Jay Smith. “We went up there and did a self-survey, in the fall of ’22, we could see with our own eyes that approximately 40,000 of the very best acres were unburned or lightly burned. With that much good forage, staying home for 2-3 years did not feel like the right answer to me.

“So I reached out to the University of Idaho and I said, hey, maybe this is the right time to negotiate a deal to not leave all that grass on the table.”

The Smiths also wanted to capitalize on the lucrative cattle prices in 2023 and 2024, meaning they needed to find places to graze their cattle herds on public lands, despite the Moose Fire. “If we would have had to sell those cows, we would have missed the peak market,” Smith said.

Turns out, the University of Idaho was eager to support the virtual fencing project. Joel Yelich, a Ph.D. senior livestock researcher at the Nancy M. Cummings Research, Extension and Education Center in Salmon, jumped in with both feet.

“Not only did they have professional staff and knowledge-base to help us get going and manage the virtual fences, they had the connections, time and resources to help us apply for grants and get funding. We would not have been able to do this without the University of Idaho,” Smith said.

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management also were helpful by investing in virtual fencing base stations to assist in the project. Base stations cost about $10,000 each.

“I’d say things are going quite well,” said Kyle Nelson, rangeland management specialist for the Salmon-Challis National Forest. “Our first season, we went into it with a lot of unknowns, pretty steep learning curve, and we’ve been able to take what we learned last year and use that with our implementation this year.”

Linda Price, manager of the BLM Salmon field office, agreed.

“I think it’s going great,” she said. “When I’m talking to permittees who are part of this, I’m hearing a lot of positive things.”

That said, virtual fencing technology has limitations, currently. For example, it won’t work in remote areas outside cellular range. That rules out a lot of remote rangelands in Idaho and the West.

Ranchers who already have fenced pastures on state or federal grazing allotments won’t need it. But virtual fencing may be valuable for controlling livestock in rugged areas where building fence is cost-prohibitive.

Statistics show the technology is catching on West-wide, according to Vence, a subsidiary of Merck Animal Health, which provided the herd-management software and base station interface technology for the virtual fencing system used in Salmon. About 45 virtual fencing projects are currently operational in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, according to Vence. Nationwide, Vence virtual fencing has been deployed by 242 ranches, covering 3.7 million acres, along with 56,000 GPS collars on livestock.