The number of sheep fell by three percent in the year ended June 2020, Stats NZ said today.

Final figures show that there were 26 million sheep in total – a fall of 800,000 from the previous year and a far cry from the peak of 70 million sheep in 1982.

“The 2020 drought caused feed shortages that led to a fall in total sheep numbers. Hawke’s Bay had the largest decrease, with the total number of sheep falling by 12 percent (346,000) from the previous year to a total of 2.5 million as at June 2020,” agricultural production statistics manager Ana Krpo said.

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• Drought causes fall in sheep numbers
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