New Zealand loses 400,000 sheep in a year, but the animal still outnumbers the country’s inhabitants

Despite having recorded the lowest number of sheep since the 1850s, the animal is still the majority in New Zealand and exceeds the number of inhabitants in the country, reveal data from the public statistics agency released this Monday, 22. less than five sheep per inhabitant, which represents a loss of 400,000 head, 2% less than in the previous census, according to a balance of local agricultural production released every five years by the Stats NZ agency. In June 2022, in the country, with 5.2 million inhabitants, there were 25.3 million sheep. “The ratio of sheep per inhabitant has fallen to less than five to one in 2022, for the first time since 1850, when sheep were first counted,” the agency said. “In 1982, there were 22 sheep per capita in New Zealand,” he recalled. “Australia now has three times as many sheep as Australia. New Zealand, although the ratio is only about three sheep per inhabitant,” explained NZ Stats in its report. New Zealand is one of the world’s leading exporters of wool. Last year, the country exported US$ 284 million (around R$ 1.42 billion at current prices). The increase in production costs and the fall in wool prices affected, however, the size of herds. They have been decreasing since the 1980s, when there were 72 million sheep in the country.