{"id":397574,"date":"2026-01-09T04:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T04:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/397574\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T04:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T04:21:14","slug":"in-queensland-tens-of-thousands-of-cattle-die-of-thirst-and-hunger-encircled-by-fresh-water-and-grass-australia-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/397574\/","title":{"rendered":"In Queensland tens of thousands of cattle die of thirst and hunger encircled by fresh water and grass | Australia news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stranded upon sodden islands that dot the submerged plains of outback north-west Queensland<\/a>, encircled by fresh water and with grass growing before their eyes, tens of thousands of cattle are dying of thirst and hunger.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds completely absurd,\u201d grazier Angus Propsting says. \u201cBut they are actually perishing because they are not drinking, even though they are surrounded by water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the famished cattle look upon grass tens of metres from where they perch.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if there is a body of water between them, they will starve themselves before they will walk back through any water,\u201d the 31-year-old cattleman says. \u201cThey are not leaving their little islands, they are just starving themselves to death. It is like they have given up \u2013 or they are too fearful to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The water is not too deep for the cattle to wade through on these rolling downs and timbered, sandy hills at the headwaters of Queensland\u2019s longest river, the Flinders. It is fresh rainwater. There are no crocodiles on Propsting\u2019s station, about 40km north-east of Richmond, a town that sits more or less halfway between the inland mining city of Mount Isa and Townsville.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes no sense,\u201d Propsting says of the Brahman and Droughtmasters\u2019 refusal to drink or enter the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one knows why,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are a bit shell-shocked, I suppose. Fearful of the mud and water\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the phenomenon has been observed. It happened in 2019, Propsting says \u2013 \u201cthe exact same thing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then half a million head of cattle and sheep<\/a> drowned, starved and died of cold and illness in flooding that inundated 11.4m hectares of grazing country in the state\u2019s north-west.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, as blue skies gloried above much of the waterlogged outback for the third consecutive day, many graziers were beginning to take stock of their losses and preparing to head out on buggies and dirt bikes to coax cattle to fodder and water troughs \u2013 beasts so utterly dispirited they could no longer be driven by helicopter.<\/p>\n

Flooding in Maxwelton, just west of Richmond, on the Flinders Highway. Photograph: John Wharton<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of stock are estimated to have died in the weeks of rain since Christmas but the Richmond shire mayor, John Wharton, reckons the estimate is conservative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere won\u2019t be the losses of \u201919, because this is more isolated,\u201d he says. \u201cI would hazard a guess, probably 100,000 [dead cattle]. They are talking 16,000 \u2013 well, some of those big properties up in the Gulf will lose that many just themselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the councillor of 35 years and mayor since 1997 says it could take up to five months before the scale of the devastation is known \u2013 all the fences have been washed away, he says, cattle swept down rivers on to different properties.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, as the frantic work of saving as many head of cattle as possible begins in earnest, it is not just the livestock in danger of shell shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are very mentally stressed and traumatised,\u201d Wharton says. \u201cIt does have an effect on you, that\u2019s for sure\u201d.<\/p>\n

As water recedes, and they see \u201cmore and more bodies\u201d emerge from the muck, Propsting says, everyone is left \u201ca bit mute and confused\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cattle in flood water on a station near Julia Creek. Photograph: Cody Rogers<\/p>\n

But, he stresses, he is comparatively fortunate. His land is full of red and sandy hills that drain and provide high ground. Farther west, on the \u201cdead flat black soil plains\u201d around Julia Creek, he says, the water rises half a metre \u201cand the whole lot has gone under\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sort of at the very start of where all this trauma is,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Guy Keats runs Beefmaster across those drowned plains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis country here just floods straight across it and they\u2019re all standing in water,\u201d he says of his cattle. \u201cThey\u2019ve been standing in water for a week \u2013 we\u2019re losing them. We\u2019re losing a lot of calves.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is all \u201cfairly exhausting and sickening\u201d, he says \u2013 \u201cand it\u2019s too close to 2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing what I can,\u201d he says. \u201cFlying around and shooting them \u2026 I\u2019m just about at the end of it, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

While some are nearing the end of their tether, the work of recovery is only beginning \u2013 the danger not yet passed.<\/p>\n

Trouble on the horizon<\/p>\n

North of Julia Creek, Cody Rogers says, the Flinders River \u201ckeeps getting bigger and bigger\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust three or four inches of water but it is just spreading and spreading, just creeping out further and further,\u201d the grazier says. \u201cThe cattle we thought were safe \u2013 now they\u2019re not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rogers says he sank knee-deep in mud following cattle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe black soil mud here, it\u2019s just like a slurry, almost, in places,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no hard bottom. It is just so tiring for everything trying to walk through it, man and beast\u201d.<\/p>\n

The cattle, he says, are physically weak \u2013 mentally \u201cthey\u2019re traumatised\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way I can explain it is: go and put a pair of jeans on and tape up the bottom and fill it with sand,\u201d he says. \u201cTry and walk around with just heavy, heavy legs for days and days and days on end. That is what they are trying to put up with, poor buggers. It\u2019s horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

And despite the blue skies, storm clouds gather beyond the horizon.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a tropical low over the Coral Sea will begin to move towards the north-east coast over coming days \u2013 with the potential to form a cyclone. The heavy rain it will bring is expected to move inland over the weekend.<\/p>\n

If heavy rain hits soaked catchments, Keats fears flooding as devastating as that of seven years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of next week, they are talking about it raining at the top of the system,\u201d the cattleman says. \u201cAnd, if it does that, it\u2019ll be a bloody disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stranded upon sodden islands that dot the submerged plains of outback north-west Queensland, encircled by fresh water and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-397574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}