With growing global demand for sheepmeat and wool expanding rapidly, Australia’s sheep industry has a bright future.

But in Central Queensland – once the heart of the state’s wool industry – wild dogs are forcing producers off the land or out of sheep, and devastating regional communities.

The situation hasn’t been helped by drought, and the irony is that sheep are much better suited to tough conditions than cattle – they don’t need as much bulk or protein; a little rain will produce enough pick for them to carry through; and they can be shorn, producing an income even in the middle of drought.

For one group of producers in the Tambo-Blackall region, the answer has been exclusion fencing, and they’ve banded together in an effort to control the dogs and once again have the choice of running sheep or cattle.

Click on the video link below as some of the stakeholders tell their story: