Bushwalk Australia

Some 100,000 feral camels have been culled from the Australian outback, a key step towards controlling the troublesome animals that have destroyed infrastructure, contaminated water holes and ruined sacred Australian Aboriginal sites.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/ ... -Australia

The last 12 months would have been a boom time for camels. Great conditions for them (and rabbits, and foxes, and...).

The joke was that the program got up and running in time to see the populations increasing, not a good start for a control program !!!

More info on what they're doing is at http://www.feralcamels.com.au/

Camels are a pest that should all be culled

Camels are cool and wonderfull, but smash the place up something shocking. Serious control is desperately needed.

Do camel farms like deer farms need better fences? Yeah I know the camels are most likely to be sourced from camels set free over 100 years ago once the Afghans were replaced by the train. But the question remains.

What a wasted resource! I can highly recommend yearling camel as nutricious and delicious, after eating some in Saudi a couple of years ago.

Probably not as destructive as cattle and there would be a darn sight more cattle out there.
Currently the issue is about who will make money out of the carbon credits.
Sounds like they are bitching http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-16/c ... ls/4467032

Whereas;

"Some landowners have raised concerns over the cull, in which the animals have been shot. They said the camels were suffering unnecessarily and bemoaned the waste of the meat, much of which is left to rot." whats the op.cit or ibid a couple of links thingies up?

Sounds like a pile of to me. Whats teh footprint of unfettered tourism up there?

Swifty wrote:What a wasted resource! I can highly recommend yearling camel as nutricious and delicious, after eating some in Saudi a couple of years ago.

Haven't tried it myself, but I agree.

Bear Grylls wasn't overly keen on it raw mind you......

ILUVSWTAS wrote:

Swifty wrote:What a wasted resource! I can highly recommend yearling camel as nutricious and delicious, after eating some in Saudi a couple of years ago.

Haven't tried it myself, but I agree.

Bear Grylls wasn't overly keen on it raw mind you......

I've eaten camel. it's very good. If not fit for human consumption, pet meat?

Yep, our country is amongst the worst for food waste though. Same goes on in Tassie each year with the wallaby culls.

I have been informed by several reliable sources in Moroc, Persian Gulf, India and Nepal that we have the most robust camels in the world, the envy of many. Some wish they could import them but quarantine from here to there is problematic.

It would be great to re-enact Robyn Davidson's trek or Eyre's epic journey around the Bight (but with camels). Speaking with adventurers who have used them it sounds daunting, very expensive, time consuming in preparation and fraught with all kinds of unhelpful surprises.

IMO, one of the things which disturbs me the most when i hear of culling any kind of animal, native or introduced, is the knowledge that not every animal is killed humanely. With advances in research and learning from experience the methods of culling could be more closely monitored to ensure no animal suffers. No one should be allowed to take part in a cull unless they have an 100% accuracy record from both the air and ground, ie, 1 bullet or bolt per kill rendering instant death. Forget traps, poison baits, machine guns from helicopters, these are not humane at all. It is sad just thinking of the suffering of other living beings in our rush to eradicate a problem before it can be fully researched and humane control methods measured over time.

100% accuracy, have you ever fired a fire arm? And at what distance are these world class shooters( ever watch the Olympic shooting?) going to obtain this 100% accuracy?
Not every animal in the wild dies humanely, I have watched too many David Attenborough docos. A professional hunter will not want to waste ammunition, they will be going for one shot one kill.
It is sad to think of the suffering of the native animals as they slowly starve to death because an area has been over grazed by feral animals.
Get rid of the feral animals as quickly and as humanely as possible, but dont put unrealistic guidelines on the people trying to get rid of them other wise the problem wont be fixed.

Roger gets off his soap box

Regarding the meat, there have been efforts to process and sell the meat, both for human consumption and pet meat. I think it's still happening but obviously it hasn't really taken off.

Ok- this thread isn't about bushwalking so I'm going to say something controversial...

With all those camels out there, maybe we should consider sending some to Hobart and Canberra. Their ability to get by on next to nothing and their winning personalities might make an improvement.

HEY- my wife said they need to bring them down here and turn them into living cable cars up Mt Wellington and Mt Roland! Camel Car! I bet people'd pay to see that.

On a more serious note- they are supposed to be awesome lawn mowers for paddocks- this guy I met who kept them says they wipe out even the nastiest weed.

And they have humps- that's just cool. They need more humps in government.

russell2pi wrote:Regarding the meat, there have been efforts to process and sell the meat, both for human consumption and pet meat. I think it's still happening but obviously it hasn't really taken off.

But where can you get it??? haven't seen it anywhere. I'd buy it if it was available!!
And I agree, get rid of them, and other ferals, ASAP!

Stibb wrote:But where can you get it??? haven't seen it anywhere. I'd buy it if it was available!!

Specialist butchers I guess (which means probably not cheap)... yep, googling camel meat tasmania brings up at least one place.

russell2pi wrote:

Stibb wrote:But where can you get it??? haven't seen it anywhere. I'd buy it if it was available!!

Specialist butchers I guess (which means probably not cheap)... yep, googling camel meat tasmania brings up at least one place.

Interesting!

As is this...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... e=northtas

ILUVSWTAS wrote:

russell2pi wrote:

Stibb wrote:But where can you get it??? haven't seen it anywhere. I'd buy it if it was available!!

Specialist butchers I guess (which means probably not cheap)... yep, googling camel meat tasmania brings up at least one place.

Interesting!

As is this...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... e=northtas

Lucky I'm not a dog
""For example, the case that most people would recognise is chocolate, which can be extremely toxic for dogs."
OMG, VERY lucky I'm not a dog

*googles camel meat hobart* Yep, Hill Street Gourmet Meet in Hobart. Should have known. Think I need to pay a visit. They have crocodile too

See http://www.camelsaust.com.au/ for some info on the industry.

The NT used to export camels to Saudi for racing. Don't think that happens any more.

norts wrote:100% accuracy, have you ever fired a fire arm??

Yes. I have fired many different types of firearms at different ranges and a variety of targets moving and stationary. My accuracy is not perfect and I have never tried to kill a living being except to euthanise when nobody with a licence was able to attend.(nor do i eat the flesh of other beings)

But I do know people who can fire a rifle with 100% accuracy because they wait for the right moment to take the shot. This is why they are issued with licences to euthanise the animals maimed and left to die slowly and painfully at the hands of some less humane men and women issued with culling licenses. It is not a natural order, especially when culling a native species.

I fully understand the impact most introduced species have on our environment, including humans. I also understand how much this can be beat up by whoever it advantages. Having lived in a NP and listened to their internal banter and conflicts with interested parties I am embarrassed by their incompetence in past management projects and lack of thorough scientific consultation in current operations and future proposals.

Not only camels but if we were to talk of introduced animal species as a whole it would be fair to say we have failed to control their impact in recent history through lack of understanding, poor planning and incompetence. This may offend some parkies and hunters but this is the truth of what I have witnessed and heard.

The interest and the pressure behind the camel cull at the moment is because someone has figured out a way of making an industry and a serious buck out of the carbon credits trade. No one really gives a rats otherwise.

It would (probably already) be a goer if the the government was satisfied with the carbon footprint assessment system and their pound of flesh.

I was involved in a camel cull job back in the late 1980's. We severely understimated the number of camels (the manager of the property just guessed and was out by around 120) and ran out of rifle ammunition before the job ended. We ended up using pistols to get rid of the last of them. Thats something i never want to repeat. I went back two years later and camels from another area had just moved in and started to build up in numbers again.

In the 1990's the abattoir in Alice Springs started to process camel meat commercially and it tasted pretty good. I believe its main market was export. Apart from Alice Springs supermarkets and butchers ive never seen it on the shelf of my local Woolies.

Camels do enormous damage to the outback, and i think you really need a dedicated program like the water buff cull in the top end, to really tackle the situation. You need pro-hunters as well, not amateurs. Its easy to hurt a camel, not so easy to kill it quickly.