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Comment by MarkusWandel | Hacker News Reader

Dunno, once upon a time the low tech solution was... a fence.

The historical reason is that canals were originally built to facilitate horse-drawn boats, and as such there are no fences. The modern reason is that people use the canals all day, for hopping on/off houseboats and rowing training - putting up fences just for a few cows would make many people upset.

FYI, I live right next to this area and it's almost as central as you can get in Cambridge, so it's super busy - people and cyclists coming through this field all the time, including myself. There are plenty of fences around the roads and land borders of the commons, but it's just the canals that have these special uses that require a lack of fences.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/PifHtYpg1u2SfojF9

> The historical reason is that canals were originally built to facilitate horse-drawn boats, and as such there are no fences. The modern reason is that people use the canals all day, for hopping on/off houseboats and rowing training - putting up fences just for a few cows would make many people upset.

Seems like maybe the fence could be put up some reasonable distance away from the water to leave enough usable space along the shore for people. I see that done here where I'm at sometimes.

Of course you could put up a fence. This isn’t a situation where the collars solve a previously unsolvable problem. But fences cost money, both the build and to maintain. Fences restrict movement for people (and wildlife), which is undesirable. You have to build gates for people to use, and if it is a busy area you need a lot of gates. People fail to close gates and cows get through them. If you need to move vehicles or equipment between the canal and the field, then you need some large gates as well.

The collars allow for restricting the movement of cows, while leaving the entire area open and unencumbered for everything else.

Fences would be ugly and cost a lot more than some collars for a herd of cows.

I should clarify that I'm thinking like an old-school dairy farmer here, because I did grow up on a dairy farm. Cows were confined to the day's grazing area by putting up lightweight electric fencing. Just sticks of wood hammered into the ground with an electric insulator on them, and wire strung between them from a reel. That's how we did it; more modern version uses metal or fiberglass poles and a soft string that has wires woven into it.

The shock from the fence was mild, but the cows knew about it and respected the fence. And when the area was grazed out, you moved the fence and gave them a new area. Any "right to roamers" that wanted to cross the field could easily duck under the fence. No problem. Mind you, this was in rural south Germany, not urban Britain. We did get right-to-roamers, sort of, because there was a somewhat popular swimming access to a small lake on our pasture.

So, the way you've written this comes across as if you think that's a canal running across midsummer common. For the benefit of those unfamiliar, it's not a canal, it's the River Cam. It may well be that the reason for no fences is boat transport, though.

There definitely was serious boat transport in the area- midsummer common hosted a fair; historically fairs were actually vital to the economy as a lot of goods were exchanged there, and even more contracts for goods. Nearby Stourbridge fair was the largest in Europe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stourbridge_fair and the inspiration for Bunyan's "Vanity fair" in "Pilgrim's Progress"

Yes you're correct - I more meant that paths either side of the river and other infrastructure was originally put in place for this reason, not that the body of water itself was man-made.

We've heard of Chesterton's fence. This is a rare example of Chesterton's non-fence.

It only appears rare for two reasons: the proposal consists of a literal fence, and we’ve no idea how many such failed or denied proposals have come before it.

Surely it must be well-known that it is exceedingly rare, but valuable, for an organization to document why they didn’t do certain things.

No, this is rare because of how how few places are called Chesterton.

Chesterton's geofence.

yes, true, my niehbors have a biodynamic farm with cattle, but the farm dogs has decided to start monitering the activity on all the adjacent farms.....quite odd hound dog....and so has been fittedwith a gps collar, which is proving to be just further distraction....as the dog is supper cagey, and silent....except when going into full hound dog baying mode....checks the road both ways...and slinks off if there is traffic....only darts accross when it's all clear. There was a full robot dairy farm up the road, but they sold there quota....likely retiring to somewhere exotic.

Fences require maintenance too, especially near rivers. Plus these aren't traditionally farmed cattle, so there's that.

Cows can jump a lot higher than people expect. They can also throw their weight at a fence and break through.

Except that they don't. Again, old school dairy farm experience here. The cows were confined to the barn all winter. When we first let them out in the spring, they went for a stampede around the field. This was a bit risky, because if a fence wasn't clearly visible enough they might trample it and hurt themselves on the barbed wire. In practice, the stampede only lasted for a few minutes, then they settled down and grazed. And that was that; for the rest of the season even the barely visible temporary electric fences (just wooden poles and a wire) would contain them fine. They would graze under the fence, they knew exactly how far they could go without the wire contacting them and giving them a shock. And they certainly didn't jump over anything.

There's another "low tech" solution. Just pump the water to a safe place. You can even create an area with sprinklers activated by movement.

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