The project provides a vital land management resource for the conservation and restoration of nationally and internationally important habitats across Lancashire, Manchester & North Merseyside.

Supported by the Halpin Trust we are trialling the use of this technology across our cattle grazing operations. The GPS collars and virtual barriers enhance management options for animal welfare, safety, and nature conservation through the following benefits:

Greater control of grazing effort: Virtual fencing creating exclusion and inclusion zones, enabling the ability to concentrate grazing effort within a fixed area like around a dune slack or exclude livestock from sensitive areas for ground-nesting birds.

Reducing emissions: As we work towards achieving net zero emissions across our operations, targeted grazing via the use of no fence technology will enable us to achieve objectives with fewer animals in turn reducing overall emissions whilst achieving desired outcomes.

Improved Security: Multiple virtual fences positioned to provide several layers of boundary security improving safety for livestock and people. GPS location and mobile app providing real time data notifications alerting us to an animal’s location, movements and / or escape.

Animal Welfare: Allows animal movements for husbandry and transport by monitoring animal movements and, over a period of days, zoning animals back towards handling systems when required. The system will also enable us to exclude livestock from hazards such as injurious vegetation and potentially hazardous landscape features.

Data capture: Record of individual animal location within a defined area across the grazing period enabling longer term control and efficiency to be achieved.

Wider visitor engagement: QR codes generated enabling visitors to publicly accessible grazed sites to locate animals and plan to either find them or avoid them, combined with information about the conservation objectives promotes greater awareness.

We will be trialling No Fence technology at three locations during summer 2023: Brockholes , Cutacre and Freemans Pools. If visiting these sites, please do look out for our lovely longhorns. The cattle may be grazing on non-publicly accessible areas however if you look out for posters on site you will be able to scan the QR code and access a map showing you where they are grazing and find out more about the fantastic conservation work our cattle do.