Wild camels in Australia

May 11 2018

There are lots of wild camels in the Australian Outback.

It is now becoming apparent that their presence is upsetting natural bio-diversity there.

There are well over a million feral camels that are living in arid and semi-arid regions of the Australian outback.

Those wild camels demolish air conditioners, fences and toilet systems and foul critical watering holes.

It is costly to repair the damage that those wild camels do.

The wild camels can eat up to very high heights in our trees.

When they are thirsty the wild camels can destroy the water pipes and air conditioning units off of walls, and smash up toilet systems.

The camels were brought to Australia from India over a hundred years ago in order to work in the scrubby, red-earthed arid parts of the Australian outback, transporting people and as pack animals.

Once trains, roads and machinery made them obsolete as workers, the camels were let loose, creating the world's only population of wild camels.

Since then their population has doubled every eight or nine years.

They are desert-adapted animals,and t hey adapt very well to the Australian conditions

The camels can chug more than 50 gallons of water in three minutes and their thirst often leads to problems.

Sometimes when large numbers of feral camels converge on a small waterhole, the first animals get mired in the holes and die, fouling the water and destroying the waterhole completely.

These waterholes are critical resources for humans and native birds and animals.

The Australian wild camels should be controlled to minimize the environmental and cultural damage that they cause

Recently over 3000 wild camels descended on one Aboriginal community during a period of drought

When feasible, the wild camels are rounded up and used for commercial consumption by people or pets.

But the camels can be in extremely remote locations.

Some wild camels are in a place where there is no other option but to shoot them