Hellooo..QLD Gov... Wake up and smell the drought.. National parks to remain off-limits to starving cattle in Qld Charlie McKillop, Monday February 3, 2014 - 17:44 EDT ABC image The Brown family from Bogunda Station, south of Prairie, say access to the parks has been vital for the survival of their stock. - ABC The Queensland government has ruled out any prospect of allowing cattle back in to national parks for grazing as drought conditions across two-thirds of the state worsen. A six-month drought emergency grazing arrangement on five national parks ended on December 31, 2013. A far north Queensland grazier says the removal of cattle from national parks not only led to the deaths of countless animals, its now posing a major fire risk. Ineke McDowall says buffel grass in nearby Blackbraes national park, in the Etheridge Shire, is so thick its made mustering cattle out of the parks difficult. Its like a wheat field, and its absolutely beautiful over there because they have had a normal season. Mrs McDowall says the emergency grazing on Blackbraes was a life saver for her cattle and family business after 80 per cent of Perryvale Station was burnt out in bushfires in October 2012. However she says others have not been so fortunate. When the emergency grazing arrangement ended, countless cattle were forced back to starvation paddocks where they faced a certain and miserable demise. But National Parks Minister Steve Dickson has denied thats the case, and has definitively ruled out any further grazing on the states national parks. Im very happy to go out there and have a look, but we brokered a deal with the grazing industry of which we fulfilled our component and the grazing industry fulfilled theirs by being out (of the national park) by the 31st of December. The feedback Ive got from my staff is the use that these parks sustained (carrying cattle) over that period of time has lessened the amount of buffel grass, but Im not sure that its recovered to the extent that youre talking about.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 19:53:59 +0000
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