There Are Now Less Than 5 Sheep To One Human In NZ The Ratio Of Sheep To People Has Dropped Below Five-To-One For The First Time Since The 1850s

There are now less than 5 sheep to one human in NZ … The ratio of sheep to people has dropped below five-to-one for the first time since the 1850s, when national sheep numbers were first recorded. Little wonder the sheep jokes have all but disappeared. The national sheep flock has dropped to 25.3 million as at last June, but despite that 22 million lambs were tailed in the 2021‒2022 year. The regions with the largest decline in sheep numbers were Northland, with 31.8% fewer sheep, Tasman 27%, Southland 21% and Bay of Plenty and Auckland each recording a 20.7% fall. And overall fewer animals were farmed in New Zealand in 2022 than five years earlier, with dairy cattle numbers falling to 6.1 million, their lowest in 11 years. Sheep numbers were 400,000 lower, beef cattle numbers are steady at 3.9 million while deer fell 5% from 836,000 to 794,000.