Australia culling feral camels
A national-scale program to bring Australia's notorious population of feral camels under control has expressed the hope of expanding on earlier successes. The Feral Camel Management Project is intending to meaningfully reduce feral camel numbers in specific areas to protect both native wildlife populations and and the vital waterholes they depend on, citing the statistics that the cost of grazing land damage and other harm caused by feral camels is estimated at Aus$10 million per year and an individual camel is estimated to be responsible for approximately 1 tonne of CO² emissions on an annual basis.
Approximately 13,000 feral camels were culled in the Northern Territory last year. Commenting, Spokeswoman for the Project Jan Ferguson said "We are certainly hopeful it would accelerate. We would hope to remove about 50,000 camels in the next 12 months, subject to weather and good intelligence."
Camels were originally introduced to the Australia from overseas between 1840 and 1970 as beasts of burden suitable for exploration and labour in the country's arid interior. The majority came from India, but significant quantities were also imported from the Arabian Peninsula, China and Mongolia. The population is now believed to number more than a million, with the majority believed to be concentrated in Western Australia.
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