Australian farmers use thousands of sheep to spell anti-gas message
No this is not a request for awesome tunes, it is a protest against gas mining.
Farmers in the south-west of Victoria, Australia have taken to the paddock with a flock of sheep to voice their protest towards the further exploration of unconventional gas reserves in their area.
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Around 2,000 peckish sheep converged to spell out the words "ban gas," as part of a coordinated effort led by local farmer Mal Rowe.
"We thought, well, rather than us just saying 'ban gas,' we thought we'd get some of the animals together that will be potentially affected by it to spell it out," Rowe told ABC News.
Using grain trails to spell out the message, it took two weeks of rehearsals to get it right. Initially, the farmers tried writing the letters with grain as the sheep made their way into the paddock, but the farmers were mobbed.
"The sheep stay on the grain trail for about ten minutes, but the most critical part was the first thirty seconds when they put their heads down and eat," Rowe told the publication. "Any longer than that and they would drift and the words would become smudged, so we had the drone up there ready to film."
The farmers are in the Otway Basin, stretching from Cape Jaffa in South Australia to north-west Tasmania, which has been flagged for one of the largest unconventional gas reserves in the state, according to the ABC.
Unconventional gas, including coal seam gas, shale gas and tight gas, is found in complex geological systems making it difficult to extract, according to the Australian science body, the CSIRO. Extraction includes the method of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, to increase the flow of gas being pumped out the ground. Fracking has been a source of controversy due to concerns that the practice is contaminating surrounding groundwater.
A statewide moratorium on the unconventional gas sector was introduced by the former Victorian state government in August 2012, as authorities began to investigate the potential health and environmental impacts of fracking.
An inquiry last year was unable to reach a majority decision on whether the unconventional gas sector should be subject to a permanent or five-year ban in the state. The inquiry recommended studies into water and health impacts, further monitoring of groundwater, as well as compulsory environmental impact assessments on any future unconventional gas projects.
A response to the inquiry's findings is to be announced by the Victorian government in the next few months. At the moment, farmers are getting the runaround not only by their sheep, but seemingly by authorities too.
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