Clean-up of dead livestock begins following Australian floods

Health authorities in Tasmania began on Wednesday the arduous task of disposing of thousands of livestock killed in last week's floods.

It is estimated that the floods swept away over 1000 head of cattle, as well as hundreds of sheep, onto public land and into waterways.

Wes Ford, the director of Tasmania's Environment Protection Authority (EPA), said that the wide spread of livestock across the state's north made it impossible to know how long the cleanup would take.

"There's quite a few ended up in Bass Strait (the stretch of ocean separating Tasmania from mainland Australia) and may end up washing up along the coastline," Ford told the ABC on Wednesday.

"It might be roughly a third of those animals would be found on land, maybe a third of them have disappeared out to Bass Strait, maybe a third of them will never appear again."

The EPA said it would also clear dead stock on private land for farmers who are unable to and has engaged contractors to assist with the effort.

"It's obviously difficult for property owners to have to deal with other people's stock when their own stock have already been washed away," Ford said.

"Part of the task is working out where the stock are, where they have actually ended up."

Farmers in southern Tasmania, which was largely unaffected by the floods, have rallied to help their northern counterparts, providing hay and silage after much of the northern farmers' stock for the winter was destroyed by floods.

"I've seen personally a lot of hay destroyed, there is an awful lot missing," Jeremy Barthwick, a stockfeed salesman who coordinated a convoy of feed from south to north, told the ABC.

"With hay and silage so low in Tasmania after the drought conditions we are going to be desperate for anything."

The floods in Tasmania were the worst in the state since 1929, killing as many as three people and causing millions of dollars worth of damage. Endit