In 1788 when the ships of the First Fleet landed in Australia they brought seven ‘dangerous’ animals — five cows and two bulls.

The people who brought the cattle did so because they were a well-known and important source of milk, meat, muscle power and hides. Cattle were part of their lives and they believed the cattle were essential to creating a liveable environment in the new colony.

Of course people did not realise it, but these animals would have a huge impact on the Australian environment. One of the ways they had an impact was through their poo.

How could cow poo be a problem for Australian landscapes?

The first cow stepped ashore on Australian soil on 26 January 1788, and it pooed.

This did not seem to be a great problem unless somebody stepped in it.

However there was an even greater problem because, as there had never been cattle in Australia before, there were no insects that could break down cow poo. There were native insects that had evolved with native animals and that could break down things like kangaroo, wallaby and wombat poo, but not the much larger and wetter cow pads.

Cow pads would take months or even years to break down in natural conditions.

The poo created four problems for the landscapes occupied by large numbers of cattle:

• The poo covered part of the soil, so nothing would grow under it.
• The grass that grew at its edges would not be eaten by other cows.
• Bush flies and parasites bred in huge numbers in the poo — some of them carrying diseases that could infect animals and people.
• The slow breakdown of the poo meant that nutrients were not being returned to help the soil.

All this did not matter much when there were a few cows, or a few hundred, or even a few thousand. But there were real problems when there were over 20 million cows spread all over Australia, each pooing 10–12 times a day, and with every pat able to produce up to 3000 bush flies every two weeks.