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Re:Smart Cow Collars by tyingq on Thursday September 24, 2020 @09:47PM (#24585777)
On my grandfather's ranch, he had those rows of pipes laid in the ground with spaces between them at the road entrance. The cows couldn't walk across them, but your car would do just fine.

When he made a back entrance, he just painted white lines instead of the more expensive pipe setup. He'd learned from neighboring ranches that once the cows understand the pipes, they won't walk across the painted lines. And, I don't quite know how, but new cows learn from the existing herd not to try the white lines.

Re:Smart Cow Collars by KineticLensman on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:55AM (#24589173)
> he had those rows of pipes laid in the ground with spaces between them at the road entrance

Yes, exactly, a.k.a. Cattle Grid [0]. They are heavily used in the UK in National Parks where there are free-ranging livestock (horses, cattle, etc). There is one just a mile from where I live, at the edge of the New Forest.

> but your car would do just fine.

If only the tourists realised this! Locals take them at speed and you just shoot across them and the speed evens out the bumpiness. Tourists take them slow which makes them much more noisy and bumpy. That said if you try to turn on them (e.g. if you haven't straightened up from a junction) they can cause a significant skid risk, especially when they are wet.

Finally, many of the local ones have little escape ramps for small animals (e.g. hedgehogs) that fall in and then would otherwise get trapped in the pit below the pipes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_grid

Re:Smart Cow Collars by Qqqwxs on Friday September 25, 2020 @07:10AM (#24588605)
I've heard a similar story about an experiment with monkeys, apparently called the 'five monkeys experiment' [1].

A group of monkeys were put in a room with a ladder leading to a banana. When a monkey touches the banana, sprinklers turn on and soak the room. The monkeys quickly learnt to ignore the banana to avoid getting wet, and even physically stopped newly introduced monkeys (who were unaware of the sprinklers) from climbing the ladder.

The entire group was eventually replaced one by one. The replacement group had never seen the consequence of climbing the ladder, but policed eachother as well as any new members from eating the banana.

[1] https://workingoutloud.com/blog/the-five-monkeys-experiment-...

Re:Smart Cow Collars by todd8 on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:24AM (#24588960)
The five monkey experiment is only a fable. See [1].

[1] http://www.throwcase.com/2014/12/21/that-five-monkeys-and-a-...

Re:Smart Cow Collars by KineticLensman on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:57AM (#24589196)
Yes. Whoever developed it has obviously never seen real primate behaviour which is usually totally driven by what the alpha male thinks or does. A low ranker who tried to police the alpha would get a serious beating.

They never even say what sort of Monkey it is.

Re:Smart Cow Collars by chrisco255 on Thursday September 24, 2020 @09:55PM (#24585820)
Yeah, and there's lots of analogues in human behavior, to be sure.