Could you imagine going through more than 25,000 gallons of water a day? Crazy right? What if I told you it was a herd of cattle in Australia doing that. Thousands of cattle are swarming trucks full of water to survive. In the last 400 years, this is the worst drought ever recorded in Australia. If the cows continue going through gallons of water a day, by the end of the year the cattle would have gone through almost 10 million gallons.
During the past 14 months, the Bureau of Meteorology recorded below average rainfall across New South Wales, the northwest of Victoria and into South Australia. They spoke to former property owners who lived along a creek from 1954 to 1989, and they said that they have never seen it dried up. With the temperatures higher than ever, all the water evaporates leaving none on the property.
The drought has been so widespread that farmers are reevaluating what they want to do with their livestock, something they thought would never be a question. It’s getting dangerous for the cattle to be living in these conditions. Megan Kuhn runs a beef cattle farm with her husband, and they have run into some significant issues with the number of cows that they have. This drought is making them have to sell most of their cattle because they can not afford the cost of the feeding them correctly to produce edible meat to sell. According to Megan and her husband, the situation is heartbreaking because “we’re killing a cow and a calf at this late stage of pregnancy.” The drought is so widespread there are just no options left for keeping them alive. Australia does not realize how bad it is for the livestock, which is making it so tough to keep all the cattle healthy.
The drought is all people can talk about in Australia. Many government officials are now talking about how this could be an issue of climate change. Since this is becoming such a prolonged drought, there is no doubt in their minds that they are being exposed to the adverse effects of Global Warming. If the weather continues to stay the same, many people will have to reevaluate how they will maintain their livestock with the expenses they’ll have to face and the logistical challenges of finding enough food and water.
