Cattle ranchers in Washington State have a problem with wolves. These ranchers put their cattle out to graze for a few months and then never get the same amount back. They know they will lose one or two to wolf attacks but the number of deaths to wolves has been increasing over the past few years. These ranchers needed to figure out a way to help their cattle avoid these wolf attacks. Being good citizens of their state and their land they avoided simply hunting the wolf, killing them only hurts a few and to really stop the cattle killing they would have had to kill all the wolves. That was something that was not an option from the start.
They decided to start a state run program that tracked a select number of wolves, because as you may already know wolves travel in packs as they hunt and live together. The project managers were able to know where the majority of packs were without being to invasive. With the tracking collars in operation, ranchers can download the last 24 hours of locations of the wolves and they are able to use that information along with the knowledge of their cattle’s location to help avoid trouble spots. You see cattle need to graze over a large area for the Summer months if they are to fatten up and be worth anything when it’s time to be sold off for consumption. Ranchers were having issues with the cattle coming back too small as well, which can be a more expensive problem than losing a few head of cattle. If the cattle are too scared to leave their herd to graze then they will be underweight costing the ranchers a lot of money. Cattle can cost around $1.50/pound so every pound they don’t gain can really hurt the ranchers bottom line.
The GPS tracking collars for the wolves has proven itself to be a great solution. They allow the wolves to do what they do best and the ranchers to do what they do, while making sure they get the most they can from their investment. The rancher’s job is now to help guide their cattle away from the areas in which the wolves have been tracked. The tracking collars, of course, haven’t stopped the hunting of cattle by wolves but it certainly has minimized the death of the cattle, and that is what the ranchers and people of Washington State were looking forward too, a happy medium.
If ranchers are able to keep more of their cattle by tracking what hurts their business, imagine what information you can get by tracking yours? Are your employees operating your vehicles safely, driving the speed limits, reporting their hours correctly? With a fleet management and GPS tracking system from Driver Watch Systems you can answer these questions now and have the peace of mind to know your company is operating as lean and mean as possible! Give us a call today to learn how we can help you.
