camels

Camels certainly have been useful to early settlers and explorers alike in Western Australia but the lack of responsibility for the unwanted camels once motorised transport came to Western Australia over 70 years ago has led to this large unwanted animal to increase in its numbers in the wild. It has no natural predators, the only factors to reduce its numbers is drought, possible venomous snake bites and the occasional road-train. A dead camel does provide food for Wedge-tails, dingo's, large monitors and unfortunately feral cats, once they are dead. We saw dingo's feeding on a dead camel on the Great Central Road east of Warakuna.

Here in Australia, is the largest remaining population of this species of camel. I'm not sure why we don't ship the feral camels back to their country of origin so they can save their native species and we can save our native species.

The female camels are called cows and the males are called bulls and the young are called calves. Cows live together. Sometimes they are herded by a bull. The bulls live together in bachelor groups or alone. They are not territorial although males will fight one another for a herd of cows.

A female cow is pregnant for 12-13 months and feeds her calf milk for approx the first year.
Rarely twins are born.

What do they eat?

They cause two main problems. One in what they eat and two their heavy hard nails (not hooves). They browse on approx 70%- 80% of native shrubs such as the Native Peach, and succulents from around salt lakes. The salt is needed to help them absorb their water. Not even the thorns on a lot of the desert plants stop the camels from eating them as they have a tough mouth.

Camels like cows chew their cud. They have a 3-chamber stomach.

This shrub was photographed on the Great Central Rd near Pee Gully.

Tracks

Photographed West of Warburton Great Central Road WA

This camel is two-toed and has thick leathery pads on its feet. Any animal this big does damage to the earth with its weight and also damages the burrows of reptiles etc.

Camels also push over fences and soil the limited water in drought years with their waste.

Camels have a total of 34 teeth.

How do camels store their water?

When we think of camels storing water we usually think of them storing it in their hump/s but this not the case. Rather than storing water camels reduce the amount of water they loose, by reducing the amount that they sweat, by lowering their body temperature through the day. They can do this more than probably any other mammal. So if they are not sweating they don't loose so much of their body fluids. They also don't store a separate amount of water in a hump, the water they do loose is from all over the body. To help their bodies absorb water they eat plants from around salt lakes that are higher in salt than any other mammal eats. (Quokka's eat saltbushes too but they avoid the salt berries produced by the bush that collects the salt). Camels also stay close to one another when the weather is hot to reduce the amount of sun on them and they may stand front-on to the sun to reduce the amount of body surface facing the sun. Camels do drink large amounts of water when its available.

So what is the hump for?

It stores fat so that the camel can go around two weeks without eating.

Go Here to see our video of Camels on the Great Central Road 150km east of Warburton in Western Australia.

We saw several camels on the Great Central Road and on the Tanami Track mainly in groups of around 8-10 camels.

Camels can open and shut their nostrils and have a double row of eye lashes. These features help them cope with the wind blown sand.