Cattle tick capable of carrying red water disease is confined in NSW to the far north eastern corner.
And while those in the border zone with Queensland are weary of dealing with the virulent pest, one expert says it will be a job that continues for a long time yet.
The impact of cattle tick control reaches far and wide, with British breeds free to propagate without the deadly threat in southern localities that would otherwise have succumbed. After decades of fully subsidised efforts involving up to 700 government staff and more than 1600 dips the cattle tick problem has been pushed back almost all the way - with the sub tropical climes of Tweed and Kyogle shires the last remaining habitat.
Only last month North Coast producers told The Land of their frustrations with the continuing and expensive job that offers no conclusion. Now, much of the responsibility has been handed back to individual stock owners. Veterinarian and retired NSW Board of Tick Control chairman Peter McGregor said market push to reduce chemical use in cattle production was driving the new direction in pest management.
"If we don't up our game and keep some control over our biosecurity the chemical treatment of cattle tick may squeeze producers out of the market more than the tick itself," he said.
"It's up to the individual to secure their property and implement a robust biosecurity program."
There are producers who prefer the new approach which frees them from an onerous task of calendar dipping but it puts the onus on stockholders to keep their herd clean - primarily through the use of sound fencing to enable proper quarantine from neighbouring tick populations.
From the start of the cattle tick invasion, creeping into the Northern Territory on the backs of a dozen Brahman cattle brought to Darwin for slaughter, it took just 20 years to cover the state down to the NSW border along the Scenic Rim, claiming millions of cattle along the way.
During one bullock drive to the new Normanton tallow works, in 1894, 10pc of 10,000 in the mob died. Cattle shipped to Thursday Island from that same port took the tick with them. All the island's dairy cows succumbed.
The NSW government took action and built a barrier - what would become a double fence - along the rugged border country along the McPherson Range. This coincided with a ban on Queensland cattle, horses and unsalted hides with the result that the tick did not sneak across the border at Piggabeen near Tweed Heads until 1906.
Those early ticks were clean and did not carry Babesiella with them but the disease showed up a decade later.
In 1920 a special board was established at Lismore and followed three years later with toothy legislation requiring the quarantine of infected cattle. This NSW Stock Act was tested in court after traders pushed their point that a Commonwealth should allow free trade across borders. The judge ruled in favour of the act, proclaiming that "a state is entitled to legislate for the health of its stock".
There were setbacks - the Great Depression, World War Two and wet weather that washed chemical off the backs of newly dipped cattle.
In the 1970s the program ramped up significantly with a staff of 750 and a program of new and much more expensive chemicals like DDT after ticks became resistant to arsenic. At its peak the fight gobbled up half the department of agriculture's budget. New settlers began to occupy the border country and in the 1990s there was strong opposition to dipping and the use of chemicals. Departmental focus shifted to the individual farmer.
"Laws are only effective if 95pc believe they are effective and comply with them," Mr McGregor said.
"We believe it is important to take the group with us."
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