Drought Forces World's Largest Cattle Station to Sell Remaining Herd. By Dan Box, The Australian, September 14, 2008. "Randall Crozier is manager of the world's largest cattle station, Anna Creek in South Australia, but soon he will have no cattle to run on it as the region endures the worst drought in more than a century... 'The run of it here used to be that one year in every three you got a bit of a dry time, a tough year -- lately it's been a little continuous.' Despite its size -- at 24,000sqkm, Anna Creek is bigger than Israel and uses its own road-train to shuttle herds between paddocks -- the station provides a microcosm of the trials of rural Australia today. The station is one among an empire of pastoral properties collected by the late Sidney Kidman that the 'Cattle King' believed could withstand any drought. But the past few years, which the Bureau of Meteorology describes as the worst since the Federation Drought more than a century ago, have savaged even Kidman's realm. As the vegetation failed at Anna Creek, Crozier began to send his livestock away, trucking those he could to other Kidman properties although most were sold. A few years ago there were more than 18,000 Santa Gertruda cattle; today there are about 1500, with the last expected to be gone next month."
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