AFCMP Newsletter - April 2011

La Niña sides with the camels

When the Australian Feral Camel Management Project Steering Committee met in Adelaide in March, a key topic was the impact of very wet seasonal conditions for the rollout of the project. Although excellent progress has been made in obtaining landholder consents to undertake camel removal throughout most of the feral camel range, actual removal has been hampered by weather, with commercial activities being particularly affected. The strength of the La Niña system suggests that removal will continue to be a challenge during the autumn.

The project will continue to focus on gaining landholder consents and developing cross-border collaboration to maximise camel removal as the landscape dries out. The Steering Committee also heard about the wide range of monitoring and evaluation activities happening under the project - particularly the establishment of monitoring sites (see below) at key environmental assets to assess camel impact.

Waterhole watchdog

Waterholes are scarce in desert Australia and all provide vital resources for aquatic flora and fauna as well as desert animals, plants and birds. These waterholes are small, often less than a few square meters in size, and feral camels have shown they can do massive damage, moving long distances between waterholes, destroying them and preventing other animals from accessing water. To assess the damage research is being carried out into water chemistry, turbidity and the presence or absence of aquatic macro-invertebrates in desert waterholes. At a recent monitoring workshop NT NRETAS Aquatic Ecologist Dr Jayne Brim-Box gave an overview of how to assess the health of a water body with the aim of monitoring improvements as feral camel densities are reduced.

Candid camel camera

To assess the impact of feral camels on the Australian landscape the on-ground monitoring group plans to deploy remote motion-activated cameras at key waterholes. The cameras are a relatively low-cost technology that can provide a huge amount of information about what is using the waterhole round-the-clock, when field staff are busy elsewhere. Scientific methodologies for using remotely operated cameras are being published and will continue to be modified as the technology improves and becomes cheaper. Remote cameras have been used extensively in the USA and Africa. Watch this space for candid camel shots as the images start to roll!