Four Legged Fare Paying Passengers

As long as we've had farming, we've had to transport animals and we've come a long way from the small coastal vessels known as 'mosquito fleets' that used to transport livestock before the advent of road and rail. And the days of droving 2,000 cattle from the Far North to Whangarei (as Ken Lewis did in 1982) have gone the way of the dodo.

The evolution of livestock transport has been aided by improved technology. By the 1930s there were simple flat decks with detachable wooden stock crates which could hold around 100 lambs. Cattle weren't carried by trucks until larger rigs were introduced around the 1950s.

Articulated truck-and-trailer units which could carry more stock were introduced in the 1960s. Then, from around the 1970s, in came the big rigs that were able to transport 600 prime lambs, 400 ewes or 40 cattle. Triple-level crates could be converted to double-deck for cattle and the crates were removable and for trucking firms it meant freight could be carried outside of the stock season and so help make the business more viable.

If trucks and stock numbers became bigger so did the amount of effluent produced during a journey.

One doesn't have to be very old to remember travelling behind a fully-laden stock truck and coping with the resulting smear on the windscreen and splats on the bonnet but amazingly it was only 10 years ago that an industry code to deal with the problem was finally introduced.

Other changes have occurred over the years and if you ask some of the old-timers of the transport sector what it was like 'back when' they will talk of a highly regulated industry. Tex Wilson of Cooper Wilson Transport in Kaikohe started in the business in 1980 and recalls the rigmarole required to obtain a transport licence.

"You had to go to court before a judge to be approved and there were a lot of people who would dispute your application to get a licence.

"There would be meetings in town halls and you would be told you weren't wanted in the area because you were taking business away from locals. It was fierce!"

Once there were 104 Vehicle Authorities in the Bay of Islands alone. Now there are 15. And although transport improvements can now see as many as 550 lambs carried on a full load, the changing nature of agriculture has seen a drop in the number of farms producing sheep and cattle as fewer trucks can accommodate more stock.

Then there's the smaller end of the transport scale. Take alpacas as an example and in terms of being good passengers these animals would have to be among the most compliant. Steve Hart of Naturally Alpacas of Pakaraka says when you load 'em up and start the engine, they obligingly sit down. It probably comes from a combination of genetic inheritance and obliging natures.

Mr Hart used to sell trailers for other people to transport alpacas so he was something of an expert even before he began to farm the South American camelids.

He uses a small stock trailer with sides and a canopy or an old Mercedes van without seats in which the alpacas can flop themselves down comfortably. He knows of one couple who transport their alpacas in a seven-seater people carrier without the seats.

When Steve Hart and his wife started their business in Pakaraka they purchased 51 of the animals from New Plymouth and there are specialist companies that will handle loads like that. Given that distance, perhaps it's just as well alpacas sit down for the journey.

Tex