Thirsty camels face culling
2007-03-14 09:00
Sydney - Australia's worst drought in a century is driving even wild camels crazy with thirst and hundreds of thousands will have to be eradicated, researchers said on Wednesday.
The desperate animals would need to be culled on a huge scale or exported for slaughter to prevent increasing damage to the environment and infrastructure, the Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre said.
"An estimated one million feral camels whose numbers double every eight years compete with native animals and livestock, threaten native plants, wreck fences, bores and tanks and invade Aboriginal sites," said the centre's Glen Edwards.
"Camels have been an emerging problem over the last decade or so, but the latest drought has focused camels' attention on certain parts of the landscape and brought them more into contact with people and their activities," he said.
Camels "mad with thirst" had recently rampaged through the Western Desert community of Warakurna, damaging toilets, taps and air conditioners in a frenzied search for water.
Feral camel experts from around Australia are due to meet in the western city of Perth on Thursday as part of a project to develop a national plan to control the humped beasts.
Hundreds of thousands of camels
"We're talking about hundreds of thousands of camels that need to be removed from the system," Edwards told AFP.
While some could be exported live to markets in the Middle East, Russia and parts of Europe for human consumption, or turned into pet meat, culling would be unavoidable, he said.
"Provided culling is done by people who are professional and well-trained, it is deemed to be probably the most humane way of managing camels - a quick death," Edwards said.
"In some respects it is better to do that than to muster the animals up, put them on a truck and cart them 1 000km to an export port."
Edwards said the preferred method of culling would be to shoot the animals from helicopters.
"It is an enormous task but it may well be a task that does need to be undertaken. We do have people with the skills who can do that sort of management at that scale," he said.
Camels were introduced into Australia as pack animals for the vast outback in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were released into the wild as rail and road travel became more widespread.
The country has wrestled for years with other imported animals which have run wild and created problems for indigenous wildlife, plants and farmers.
The department of the environment says animals of "significant concern" include feral camels, horses, donkeys, pigs, European wild rabbits, European red foxes, cats, goats and cane toads. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA