Key points

1. A “single tool” for studying free-ranging animal behavior on complex landscapes does not exist.

2. Today’s tools require competent multiple disciplinary teams beginning with the planning and design of experiments on through to applying the results within a practical management framework.

3. Research that involves instrumenting animals must be conducted in a human manner that accurately measures and or manages the phenomenon in question.

4. Using innate animal behaviors to accomplish management goals by melding biology with electronics to optimize ecological and labor efficiency is the future and virtual fencing will soon be one of the tools.

Introduction: Tracking animals is not new, early hunters practiced it for survival (Liebenberg, 2006); however, today it is practiced in the name of science and what the future holds will be new (Etcgroup., 2004). The phrase “if you can measure it, you can manage it” may have first been used in the health care industry (Kinex IHA Corp., 2000). Nevertheless, this axiom is pivotal to range animal ecology involving measuring and managing free-ranging animal distribution, a central tenant of grazing management (Bailey and Brown, 2011). Free-ranging livestock neither use all the space made available to them (Anderson et al., 2003; Rinella et al., 2011) nor do they use it in a random manner (Anderson et al, 2011a). Over 68 factors (Anderson, 2010) including magnetism(Begall et al., 2008) appear to impact landscape use by free-ranging animals. Thus understanding the process of foraging is challenging and may require research programs that de-emphasize traditional methods (Laca, 2009).