Yes, New Zealand still has more sheep than people. But humans are catching up

WELLINGTON – The immense fig of sheep successful New Zealand comparative to the country’s scant quality colonisation has agelong been the taxable of jokes aimed astatine New Zealanders abroad. It’s true: The state is 1 of a fistful successful the satellite that’s inactive location to much sheep than people.

But humans are catching up, according to caller figures released Tuesday. With a colonisation of 23.6 cardinal sheep and 5.3 cardinal people, determination are astir 4.5 sheep for each New Zealander, authorities statistic bureau information showed.

That’s down from 22 sheep per idiosyncratic successful 1982, erstwhile farming sheep for nutrient and wool was New Zealand’s biggest earner. Now, years of falling wool prices prompted by a planetary displacement to synthetic fibers person led farmers to alteration what they bash with their land, the sector’s biggest lobby radical said.

A shrinking flock

By onshore area, New Zealand is astir the size of the United Kingdom, but it has a quality colonisation 13 times smaller than the U.K. That means there’s plentifulness of country for sheep.

For adjacent to 150 years, the sheep manufacture was the backbone of New Zealand’s system and numbers boomed — peaking successful 1982 erstwhile determination were much than 70 cardinal sheep and conscionable 3.2 cardinal people. Before “Lord of the Rings” brought waves of tourists to the country, images of greenish fields filled with placid sheep against backdrops of snow-capped mountains dominated the country’s selling abroad.

But implicit years of diminution for planetary wool prices since — and contempt caller rallies — the nationalist flock has steadily diminished. Now dairy holds the biggest stock of New Zealand’s agriculture and horticulture-dominant export market.

Farmers effort thing new

In 2023, Stats NZ, a authorities agency, said New Zealand successful 2022 dipped beneath 5 sheep per idiosyncratic for the archetypal time. The nationalist flock had mislaid a cardinal much sheep successful Tuesday’s figures, which recorded livestock numbers arsenic of June 2024.

Toby Williams, a spokesperson for assemblage lobby radical Federated Farmers, said sheep farmers person switched to much lucrative pursuits — dairy, oregon the conversion of onshore from farming to conifer forestry in bid to merchantability c offsets.

“If I’m truly honest, the wool manufacture is astir astatine that tipping point, if not already there, of not having a wool manufacture anymore,” helium said.

Measures to bolster wool

The authorities has drawn up measures intended to dilatory the decline, including an announcement successful 2024 that they volition spot limits connected the standard of farmland that tin beryllium converted to c forestry.

New authorities procurement guidelines launched successful April impulse the usage of New Zealand wool products — specified arsenic carpets and insulation — successful recently constructed oregon refurbished nationalist buildings. But those measures are not expected to halt declining sheep numbers.

Some sheep-farming countries are signaling akin trends. New Zealand’s closest neighbour Australia — the root of astir of the sheep jokes astir New Zealanders — is besides location to much sheep than people, but the nationalist flock is shrinking determination too.

The spread is slimmer: There are astir 3 sheep per Australian.

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