No fences, just satellites: smart collars are protecting pasture and calves on steep NZ hills

Lochindorb Run is the kind of farm that defeats fencing: 2,500 hectares of steep South Otago hill country, 600 in-calf cows and 6,500 ewes. So its fences have gone virtual. Under New Zealand's LIFT programme — which links nine pastoral stations nationwide to build a shared data library on collar-based stock guidance in harsh terrain — Lochindorb's cattle wear Halter GPS smart collars that draw boundaries from a phone. A virtual fence can be moved instantly, with no post-and-wire labour, so grazed pasture starts recovering the moment stock shift, and soil stays untrampled. The collars also listen: they track rumination, rest and movement, and send automatic calving alerts when a cow's behaviour changes, so help arrives in time and fewer calves are lost. In heavy rain, stock can be moved to high ground at a tap, keeping them out of the low-lying waterways below.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: tech innovation