UP until three years ago in the outback Queensland town of Longreach, thousands of cattle were sold at the town’s saleyards weekly.
Now, as the region enters in its fifth year of an increasingly crippling drought, there’s barely livestock to be seen.
Sold for slaughter, mostly, except for the valuable breeding stock which have been agisted to greener pastures interstate, until the rains come.
“Drought is not like other natural disasters, it sneaks up very slowly and keeps tightening its grip,” third generation grazier Angus Emmott, of Noonbah cattle station, south west of Longreach told news.com.au