There are 67 million sheep in Australia. This is a lot of sheep, roughly 3 for every Australian resident. Ten years ago there were enough for 6 per person, a small flock per household.

Together with cattle, the current herd grazes across 430 million hectares or 56 percent of the continent.

If averages were a useful thing to quote, then each sheep might have 6 ha each, many times the area of the average suburban housing lot. It would seem that we are happy enough to let livestock roam.

Time will come when we will rethink this decision.