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University of Washington pilot uses satellite ear tags to help ranchers track cattle and trigger proximity alerts
Summary
A UW pilot deployed 24 solar satellite ear tags across three herds in Columbia County; tags transmit every 4–6 hours, enable geofencing and high‑movement/no‑movement alerts, and will expand to 72 tags next season for more analysis of behavior and management use.
Vivian Hawkinson, a University of Washington PhD student in the People and Wildlife Lab, presented results from a pilot in Southeastern Washington deploying 24 solar satellite ear tags across three herds to test whether near‑real‑time location and behavior alerts can assist producers and range riders.
"They transmit the location of the tagged cattle every 4 to 6 hours," Hawkinson said, describing how Mapapedia displays tag locations, battery, and accuracy and can generate geofence, high‑movement and no‑movement alerts by text or email. The team used default no‑movement (24‑hour) and high‑movement triggers last summer and tailored alerts as they learned pasture‑specific behavior patterns.
Hawkinson said the tags cost about $150 apiece (three years of satellite connectivity) and require an initial 5–7 days of direct sunlight to charge. In the pilot, they deployed eight tags per herd on adult cows; two herds grazed fenced pastures seasonally and one used rotational grazing. She reported generally reliable transmissions and accurate locations (typically within 5–10 meters) but noted an earlier tag design in which the electronics piece could separate from the mount; the manufacturer revised the design to a single one‑piece tag.
The project also paired a subset of cows with higher‑resolution GPS collars and accelerometers to capture hour‑by‑hour locations and second‑by‑second behavior for machine‑learning analyses. Hawkinson said these collars do not transmit in real time (data are retrieved when collars are recovered) but are valuable for building behavioral models that could later be applied to ear‑tag data.
The team plans to add 48 more ear tags (bringing the total to 72) and to expand deployments in Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties next summer. The research aims to refine alert thresholds to reduce false positives in steep or rugged terrain, evaluate whether tags help producers locate animals faster and to explore non‑consumptive effects of wolf proximity on cattle behavior and welfare.
Hawkinson invited producers and range riders interested in participating or knowing more to contact her; she said the team is pursuing grant funding to scale the work and will conduct annual user interviews to assess whether the tool increases efficiency for intended users.
