About Fletcherview

With an iconic landscape and unique environment, there's so much to discover in the Queensland outback at Fletcherview station as a student or researcher.

Fletcherview runs approximately 600 head of high-grade Brahman cattle: 300 breeder-aged females and 300 yearling cattle. For over 25 years we have been breeding the herd to be genetically similar, meaning less variation in genetic performance and better results from research studies.

Bred with impeccable temperaments, the cattle are ideal for helping support research, learning and teaching. Our main operation is to supply these livestock to the James Cook University College of Public Health, Medical & Veterinary Sciences. We ensure our cattle are representative of the Northern Australian beef industry and all research on our station is transparent to the rest of the industry.

Country

Fletcherview occupies 1960 hectares of land, across two main country types: black and red basalt soils, and alluvial river flats. The basalt country features native grasses like black spear, kangaroo, desert blue, golden beard, flinders, and numerous others, as well as introduced species like stylos buffel and urochloa. The alluvial country is mostly inhabited by introduced grasses such as buffel, urochloa, stylos and some leucaena.

The station hugs a 2.5 kilometre length of the Burdekin River, one of the largest river systems in Queensland. You will also find three major creek systems (Lolworth Creek, Pandanus Creek and Hann Creek) on the property to analyse and explore.

Like much of regional Queensland, our research station typically experiences a wet and dry season each year. The wet season usually begins in early January and continues until April. During this time, Fletcherview receives most of its annual rainfall, with an average of 600mm per year. The average temperature is 30 degrees Celsius.

Fletcherview is a fully operational outback cattle station, but its location in the dry Tropics, two hours west of Townsville, nurtures a huge variety of flora and fauna. Across open savannah woodland, dry rainforest, lava flows, three creek systems and the Burdekin River, hundreds of species of plants, birds, fish, insects and mammals thrive in the area.