RESEARCHING the humble Merino was not a career option Cara Allan had when she left school.
Growing up in the Eastern Gippsland in country Victoria, Cara spent most of her youth involved with horses.
In that time she partook in all aspects of the horse industry from thoroughbred racing, endurance and eventing.
But, realising there wasn't a large amount of jobs available in the horse industry, Cara decided to leave Victoria behind and moved to WA enrolling in an Animal Science degree at Murdoch University.
Cara is the first to admit she isn't your typical country girl.
She loves city life and enjoys working part-time at a pub in Fremantle to help pay the bills.
It wasn't until doing practical placements as part of her university degree on farms around WA that Cara fell in love with sheep, the agricultural lifestyle and the people that go with it.
"I'm not sure what it is I like about sheep that makes me feel so passionate," she said.
"The majority of people will tell you sheep are stupid animals, but I disagree.
"They're all individual, they all look different, have different personalities and compared to cattle that slobber everywhere or pigs that squeal and smell, sheep are an easy winner."
Having nearly finished her Honours degree, Cara's passion for the Merino is starting to pay off.
Cara has been recognised by the Australian Wool Education Trust and recently received a scholarship of $6000 to help fund a research project of her choice.
The hope is the project will have a positive impact on wool science and textile education, and benefit the whole Merino industry.
Cara said she hoped her project would help to define the impact that wrinkle score has on other components of the Merino production system, and is working with Bill and Kay Sandilands, Billandri Poll Merino stud, Kendenup, to collect extensive data.
Cara said she wasn't as interested in the economics of the meat or wool aspects of Merino production but more the animal welfare side of sheep.
"I think the mulesing debate is such an interesting topic," she said.
"With everyone trying to ban it, I'm trying to find a reasonable alternative.
"In my mind I think a genetic solution is the only way to go.
"I think producers won't be so reluctant to change the average wrinkle score of their flock if they can compensate in other ways, like less flystrike or not losing as much wool yield.
"I'm also interested in the link between wrinkle score and reproductive performance, like ewe fecundity and lamb survival."
Cara said her project had so far involved taking in-depth measurements of the Billandri sheep and analysing all sorts of data, from wool staple length and quality, to condition scores.
"Bill and Kay have been great," she said.
Cara said the benefit of working with a commercially orientated stud like Billandri meant it had taken lots of different measurements over the years, including routine micron testing from as far back as the 1970s.
"Billandri's historical data, plus all the recent stuff we have been taking, has meant we have a heap of information to analyse," she said.
With recent debate ensuing in the Merino industry about research funding, Cara said she could understand why scientific reasearch uptake was slow.
"Often it's hard to change the way farmers do things, especially if they have been doing them reasonably successfully for a long period of time," she said.
"Doing research is great and it's definitely necessary, but often there are gaps between that and its implementation.
"It's one thing to understand something, it's another getting everyone to put it into practise."
Cara said the other issue she found within the Merino industry was the decline in young people entering it over the last 20 years.
"Hopefully the situation will change," she said.
"I really want to focus my energy on adding value to the Australian sheep and wool industry.
"It's certainly not good having a lack of young people, but we are lucky the young people that are entering the industry are forward-thinking and passionate."
