DAVENPORT, Santa Cruz County — When the new Cotoni-Coast Dairies national monument site opens next week, federal officials will be counting on a novel technology to manage the wildly scenic destination: virtual fences.
Cows that graze on these public lands in Santa Cruz County, under federal lease, will be kept away from incoming visitors — and guided to more accommodating pastures — not with barbed wire or steel pens but with GPS-enabled collars that herd the animals from afar.
The technology, which is similar to invisible dog fencing but operationally different and much more advanced, has found favor with a small number of early-adoption cattle ranchers in the United States and elsewhere. But its deployment at Cotoni-Coast Dairies is one of the first in a park-like setting, monument officials say…