IT HAS been almost five years since the last Tom Groggin Station cattle were mustered out of the Alpine National Park, following fires and the Bracks Government's decision to ban alpine grazing.
To an outsider, Tom Groggin Station seems to have it all.
Images of cattle grazing lush green pastures in the shadows of towering snow-capped mountain peaks certainly captures the imagination.
But scratch the surface and you soon discover the historic Upper Murray property, once home to Jack Riley, the original Man from Snowy River, is like most traditional high country holdings as it faces a desperate fight for survival.
Trevor Davis, who has managed the 877ha property - which straddles the Victorian side of the Murray River near Khancoban - for the past 13 years, is the first to admit it is struggling.
He said the decision by the Bracks Government to end cattle grazing in Victoria's Alpine National Park has all but decimated Tom Groggin's viability.
"It's not a productive property any more, and that has been hard to swallow," Trevor said.
"We are only just starting to realise how much it has affected us."
Pre 2004-05, Tom Groggin held the Alpine National Park's biggest summer grazing lease of 7500ha. This enabled the station to run cattle at a high-altitude of 1480m on Davies Plain, near Mt Hope, and in low-altitude country backing on to the property.
Each December, two days would be spent in the saddle mustering cattle into the park, where they would remain until they were brought back down to the lower country during April in readiness for joining.
But the 170-year tradition of alpine grazing came to an abrupt halt on May 24, 2005, when then Victorian Premier Steve Bracks announced leases would not be renewed.
The Government's justification was a study which found grazing in the park damaged soil, with cattle trampling mossbeds and watercourses, threatening rare native flora and fauna and spreading weeds.
Trevor admits that while the announcement came as a blow to traditional high country cattlemen, it was probably not unexpected.
"Parks (Victoria) have always had an agenda to try and move us out of the high country," he said.
"After the '03 fires, it was a perfect excuse for them to get right on to it."
Trevor said, almost overnight, Tom Groggin - owned for the past 18 years by Sydney businessman Duncan McDonald - was forced to cut its breeding numbers by half.
He described as token the increased forestry leases offered as compensation by the Government, and ineffective in terms of their carrying capacity.
"They told the public that they were kicking everybody out of the Alpine National Park, the pristine wilderness, the snow-capped mountains. What they didn't tell them was that they were kicking us out of the back fence here at 525m," he said.
"Fifty per cent of our Alpine lease was under 800m and that is completely full of blackberries."
Trevor said he and fellow mountain cattlemen "tried everything" - from organising a protest rally through the streets of Melbourne to meeting with key politicians - to try and have the decision overturned.
"We told the pollies: 'How about we set up the property here where you can do studies, where you can put cattle on to the low elevation up to 800m and you can monitor it ... and monitor your high alpine grazing and your forest leases'," he said.
"They could have really set up a good program here to find out the facts. But they didn't want to know about it, because all of it was a political agenda to win votes.''
But the abolishment of grazing leases has not been the only challenge for Tom Groggin in recent years.
Rainfall now averages 700-750mm _ a far cry from the 1050mm average received prior to the 1990s.
Add to that temperatures which range from minimums of -9C over winter to highs of 40C during summer.
Trevor said the station's cattle herd now comprised 350 Angus breeding cows, the Angus replacing traditional Herefords in 1997-98.
"The Angus were more on the front foot in terms of genetics,'' Trevor said.
"I don't believe the Herefords will ever get back to where they were in the high country.
"You've only got to see the Omeo calf sale and the number of blacks in there now.''
While based on Dunoon bloodlines, the Tom Groggin herd has switched to Alpine Angus at Porepunkah as its source of genetics.
Trevor said about 14 bulls service the cows each year.
"At one stage we used 36,'' he said.
Trevor selects bulls with low birthweight and high growth rate figures, and admits steering clear of big-framed cattle "because it costs too much to feed them''.
"When we first changed over to Angus, we bought all these beautiful big-framed cows - but it just didn't work,'' he said.
"They couldn't handle the cold winters, you were feeding them and then they wouldn't join properly.
"So then we went back to the more traditional-type Angus, with medium frames. They don't look all that flash, but gee they produce good calves.''
Calves are born over a tight eight to 10-week period in late spring, weaned in May and sold as eight or nine-month-olds, mostly to backgrounders, through the Wodonga store market.
Sixty replacements are kept each year - down from 150 when the station maintained its mountain leases.
"They're like all high country cattle ... it's a hard climate for them up here and when you put them down in the lower country they just explode,'' Trevor said.
In the past, the calves were weaned straight off their mothers, but this year they were yard weaned for a couple of weeks, before being put out in a small holding yard and supplementary fed.
Trevor said he was disappointed with recent returns for cattle, given it costs $1200 to truck 70 cattle from Tom Groggin to the Wodonga saleyards.
"I think prices stink,'' he said. "How can you make money out of a $550 calf?
"I had to bring some of my heifers home (from a sale) a couple of weeks ago. I sold one pen for $420 and the others were identical, but they only got a $370 bid on them.''
Trevor said the station's pastures consisted of perennial ryegrass as well as cocksfoot and clover.
"But we haven't had the money we'd like to put back into pastures over the past five years or so,'' he said.
In times of feed shortage, cattle are fed an ethanol by-product syrup, similar to molasses, with 15 per cent protein.
Despite the challenges of drought and the lost alpine leases - which at one stage forced the owners to consider subdivision or turning the station into a farm-stay - Trevor said it would remain a working property.
"We seriously looked at the farm-stay option, spent a couple hundred thousand of dollars doing studies, but hit it on the head in the end,'' he said.
For the sake of the environment, Trevor said, cattle should one day return to the Alpine National Park.
"Wouldn't it be nice?
"It is not too late at the moment if they allowed cattle to go back in. But in another five to 10 years it will be too late.
"The build up of vegetation and understorey growth will be too much.''
