Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? (Skill Zone News, 17-Aug-2012)
Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
An experiment is underway in Switzerland, to equip sheep with cell phones, so that if they are worried by a wolf they can call the farmer for help.
British sheep generally don't have to worry about wolves. Not so in Switzerland where the once extinct wild wolf was reintroduced and is on the increase. Naturally a sheep is a tasty snack for a hungry wolf and there are complex laws which allow farmers to shoot a wolf believed to have killed 35 sheep or more over a four month period. Recently trials were conducted where sheep were fitted with collars which monitored the animal's heart rate. When the sheep spot a wolf, their heart rate climbs rapidly and the collar detects this and sends an emergency SMS to the farmer. (Obviously the sheep don't operate the phones themselves. Their hooves are much too big to operate the buttons.)
Sheep collars have similarly been used by Edward Louw, a farmer in Cape Town, South Africa, although in his case it is to protect his flock against theft. The collars, fitted to one sheep in each flock, detect when the sheep is running for more than a few seconds. Since his sheep are not inclined to run, this is a sure sign that thieves are cutting through the fences and trying to round them up, and the collar sends out the SOS to farmer Louw. The system has already resulted in the capture of one sheep rustler, although in other cases, by the time the farmer reached the fields, the thieves had long gone.
So sheep with cell phones? Whatever next? Sheep surfing the net?
About SKILLZONE News This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.