Re: SC36

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40159/newsDate/5-Feb-2007/story.htm

Drought Scars Australia's Land and Farmers

Australia - Farmers battling Australia's worst drought on record are shooting cattle they can't feed, abandoning dustbowl farms to search for grass with hungry livestock and hand-feeding animals on moonscape paddocks.


The worst drought in 100 years has left farmers the length and breadth of Australia looking to the sky and praying for rain...........

...........The 2007 drought has left Australia deeply scarred, both physically and mentally.

Dead trees stand like tombstones on barren hills, dry stream gullies look like gaping wounds and dams are cracked and baked.

The further you drive west of Sydney, the worse the view becomes. The few green patches disappear and a brown wasteland extends to the horizon, littered with livestock carcasses and dead native animals, the latter killed by trucks as they scavenged for food on the side of roads.

"We have streams that have run for decades, now dry, dams that have never been empty, now dry," said Weatherstone. "When you get a drought like this that goes on for so long and you see the livestock and soil dying it's very depressing.".............