Waterloo Cattle Station, NT, Australia, 22 August 2022. Mustering near-wild Brahman cattle on Waterloo Cattle Station with an R-44 and R-22 helicopters. The cattle roam freely through the vast roadless areas of the station, and a pair of helicopters fly in coordinated grids to slowly push the cattle down the drainages to a mustering yard where they can be sorted (“drafted”) by age. The youngest calves, less than six months old, are vaccinated, de-horned, earmarked, and branded (and the males are castrated and given a growth hormone implant to substitute some of the hormones lost by castration). The bigger calves, known as “weeners”, are separated from their mothers for shipment to another cattle station for further fattening and shipment during the wet season. The other station (Willaroo) is located on an all-weather road, allowing for export during the wet season when cattle prices are higher.
Waterloo Cattle Station covers some 189K hectares and was established here in the mid-1880s.
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- ©2022 George Steinmetz
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