Epping Forest is home to adders and grass snakes, common lizards, common lizards, and white admiral and purple-hairstreak butterflies. Mammals such as shrews, voles, and birds of prey, also find food in the forest.
For the forest bovine residents, however, it has not been easy. Forest staff have fought for years to stop cattle from roaming along roads and dual carriageways.
Satellite technology has allowed cattle in Epping Forest to finally know where they are located. The calves and cows of the English Longhorn English Longhorn English Longhorns who live in the ancient woodland have recently been fitted with receivers that look like cowbells. These receivers can pick up GPS signals which can then be used to create virtual grazing areas.
If an animal approaches the boundary, its cowbell will emit a sound that increases in pitch or eventually emits a mild electrical pulse.
The technology allows the forest cattle to spend their time in carefully chosen spots, without the need for electric fences or barbed wire to keep them from wandering off the roads around the former royal forest at London’s northern tip.
Nofence, a Norwegian company pioneered the system. It is used to manage the herd of 66 cattle that graze in Epping Forest. It is hoped that the system will allow forest workers to increase the herd by around 150 animals over the next few years.
John Phillips, the forest grazing officer and landscapes officer, stated that large grazing animals such as cows can help create very diverse habitats. They reduce the amount of grass and allow for smaller plants to grow. The grass is also kept short to help animals like reptiles, birds, and other birds eat.
The land was once home to hundreds of calves, cows, and calves. They grazed it under ancient rights granted to commoners, those who lived in a forest district and owned at most half an acre.
These rights were put under threat by the expansion of housing and land enclosures in the late 19th century. Protests started and eventually the City of London Corporation bought the forest and removed its royal designation.
It was decided that Epping Forest would remain open for recreation and enjoyment and would not be enclosed or built on. (The right of Epping Forest residents to collect wood is also preserved, though it is limited to one faggot each day of dead or decayed wood and is rarely abused.
Commoners were allowed grazing cattle even though their numbers dropped throughout the 20th Century, until the BSE crisis in 1995 which resulted in their total elimination from the forest.
Recent cattle recalls have prompted the need for a new solution. Epping Forest does not allow fencing so underground cables were first laid around the perimeter of grazing areas. Cattle were fitted with tracking devices that gave them mild electric shocks when they crossed over a cable.
Phillips stated that you had to dig the cable out each time you moved the cattle to a new area. Additionally, the cables had to be removed if they were damaged or required servicing. We needed something flexible.
Phillips stated that the Nofence system eliminates these problems. Its receivers transmit the exact location, determined by GPS, for each animal in the forest. The data is then sent to the mobile phones of forest staff. They can then use these devices to mark the grazing area of each animal on a digital map stored on their phones.
Cowbell alerts the animal to its proximity to the boundary of its grazing area by emitting sounds and then administering an electric pulse.
Synne Foss, general manager at Nofence UK, stated that the cow associates the sounds rising in pitch with the possibility of receiving an electric pulse. This is not the same as the one it would get from an electrical fence. It then changes its direction away from the boundary.
This allows us to monitor the activities of cows very precisely. It can be seen that it is able to distinguish between the first and the last pitch of each sound, and it also knows when a pulse will arrive. They know when it is coming. She explained that they turn around at last second to make the most of the fresh grass at their boundary edge.
Phillips said that these virtual grazing areas are easily modified by simply changing their boundaries via a mobile app. You can create a virtual pasture by marking it with a phone and creating a corridor linking the old pasture to the new one. The animals will then follow the corridor to their new grazing land. It is not necessary to dig up cables or remove fences. It is perfect for Epping Forest.
