Almost 40,000 dung beetles were on the move last week, though they weren't flying under their own steam.
Facilitated by dung beetle expert John Feehan, the consignment landed in Darwin last Tuesday bound for cattle properties in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and Far North Queensland.
Mr Feehan said the beetles are a long-term investment that will restore balance to the ecosystems in paddocks.
"The graziers would be looking at achieving a number of different things, including reducing Buffalo fly and internal parasite load, improve soil fertility, sequester carbon, and reduce nutrient and chemical runoff," he said.
"There would hardly be a property on the Australian continent that did not have one or two species, but the task in front of me is to put eight or 10 or 12 different species on every farm so we get dung burial in spring, summer, autumn and winter."
Mr Feehan said while little research had been done in the area, he had no doubt that investing in dung beetles and returning balance to the ecosystem could result in increased stocking rates and increased profitability.
This consignment saw at least six species of beetles collected by Mr Feehan's son-in-law, Jon Lea, from several properties in central Queensland, before being cleaned and packed for their trip north.
"The climate they are collected from and the one they're going to have to be very similar, and Jon was working in over 40 degree heat so they're quite compatible with northern Australia summer temperatures," Mr Feehan said.
The process of collecting such a consignment took Mr Lea four days and 40-degree temperatures aside, it's by no means an easy job.
"You walk around, down on your knees sometimes, picking up dung with beetles in it," Mr Lea said.
"Particularly with broad acres like out there where the dung can be spread all over, it's a case of working out the movement of the cattle and finding where the cattle were yesterday.
"Knowing the species, and understanding the habits of not only the beetles, but also the cattle; it can be a lot of guess work, you've just got to put the time into it."
The privately-funded deal is a step up from the usual shipments sent out by Mr Feehan's business Soilcam.
"Normally I send out individual consignments, sometimes three or four, but this would be closer to 40 so it's a pretty big shipment," he said.
With more than 50 years of experience with dung beetles, including many years working with a team at CSIRO to research and breed dung beetles, it's by no means the biggest shipment Mr Feehan has done.
"A few years ago we were bringing a winter species that is evolved for the cold winters down south, from Western Australia over to the east and we brought about 2 million across," he said.
"There's a great deal of interest in dung beetles and orders are increasing all the time. More and more farmers are becoming aware of the benefits that dung beetles produce and want increased dung burial throughout the year.
"I have great difficulty keeping up with the orders that come in for dung beetles and I'm the only person in the world who distributes dung beetles in as large a numbers."
And while he may not be able to keep up with the demand, Mr Feehan said dung beetles are something every producer should invest in.
Dung beetle benefits
Mr Feehan said the benefits achieved by dung beetles is "nature working to our advantage and they're easy to get going".
"We live on the most phosphorus deficient continent on the planet... and only 5 per cent of the area has reasonable soil on which reasonable rainfall falls so the other 95pc we need to restore," he said.
And the answer, he said, is in the dung dropped by a herd of about 28 million cattle.
"All this dung that gets dropped every day, up to half a million tonnes of it, has got phosphorus and other trace elements in it," he said.
"It sits on top of the ground and then the elements degrade the valuable trace elements and it all gets washed into the creeks, rivers, estuaries and oceans, and it's lost. Whereas dung beetles can bury the dung under the ground."
This usually looks like 30 to 40 holes under the cow pad and loose soil, which tunnel downwards then radiate outwards.
"From the soil surface down to the depth of the biggest beetles is about 300 millimetres and the width of the tunnel systems is about 600 to 700mm - that distance is roughly the size of a bicycle wheel.
"Imagine all the dung in a paddock was buried and you draw a bicycle wheel area around all of that; that is just this year's dropping, then you have next year's dropping and the year after.
"After four years, there'd hardly be a square metre in that paddock that didn't have that tunnel system produced and that dung put down underground, so the beetles can rejuvenate the soil."
Through increased microbial activity and plant growth, dung beetles are also able to sequester massive quantities of carbon making them "second-to-none".
They also improve moisture penetration and have the ability to filter run-off after heavy rain, with the tunnels the dung beetles create in the soil able to take in dissolved chemicals from pesticides, insecticides, fertilisers and wetting agents.
"Therefore, we end up with cleaner waterways. The beetles produce all these benefits without machinery, without fossil fuels, without producing CO2 and without a farmer's time and resources," Mr Feehan said.
