Media Release August 10 2009: Camel threat to Australian wildlife

The world’s largest feral camel herd is posing a major threat to rare and endangered Australian wildlife.
Destruction of desert waterholes and soaks by a feral camel population estimated at more than one
million over an area of 3.3 million square kilometres is a real and present danger to unique Australian
marsupials, reptiles, birds and other native animals in desert areas, the Managing Director of the Desert
Knowledge CRC, Jan Ferguson, said today.

“In Australia, DKCRC research has established that camels are out of control over huge areas of the
continent. They are causing havoc with desert ecosystems, Aboriginal cultural heritage and the pastoral
industry,” she said.

Ms Ferguson was responding to criticism of the recent decision by the Australian Government to launch
a camel control program in central Australia by a US financial journalist.

“The camel has become the rabbit of Australia’s desert regions – its population is increasing by about
80,000 animals every year. In several areas camels have pushed rare native plants to the point of local
extinction and, by drinking sparsely scattered waterholes dry, they directly threaten native wildlife that
has relied on these for millennia.

“Many of these plants and animals lie at the heart of traditional Aboriginal belief systems, so some of
the world’s oldest continuous human cultural traditions are also at risk.

“Responsible, managed and humane control of camels is essential if we are to preserve our desert
heritage, just as it is essential to control the feral rabbit pest in farming areas.”

The responsibility for co-ordinating a national control program involving some 40 State and Australian
Government agencies was recently delegated by the Australian Government under its ‘Caring for Our
Country’ program to the Desert Knowledge CRC through Ninti One, the parent company.

In December 2008 DKCRC released the most detailed study of the impact of feral camels on the
Australian deserts ever compiled. It was produced by a research team led by Glenn Edwards of the
Northern Territory Department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport, and Professor
Murray McGregor of Curtin University.

It found camels inflict around $15m in economic damage a year on an area covering one-third of the
continent. The pastoral industry loses millions every year in wrecked water points, windmills and fences
and lost effort.

In the environment, the report says, there is extensive damage to mulga communities in certain areas,
while camels may drive desert quandongs (native peach trees) to local if not regional extinction. Camels also empty precious waterholes and destroy wetlands on which native desert animals and birds depend for survival, especially during prolonged drought.

“Camels are having a major impact on Aboriginal cultural plants, bush foods and medicines. They often
invade remote communities in search of feed and water and can be aggressive and dangerous towards
humans. They have caused a number of motor accidents,” adds report lead author Glenn Edwards. “As
desertifiers, camels add to global warming and are a risk for the spread of animal diseases.”

The decision to control a feral pest animal was a serious one, and was never taken lightly, Ms Ferguson
said. “People who question this decision also need to understand what else is at risk – the future of a
number of rare native species which depend on the very scarce food and water resources available in
one of the world’s largest desert regions, and the human cultural heritage that relates to them.

“Extinction levels of Australian native desert animals are already among the world’s highest. The
impact of introduced feral animals in predation or competing for scarce resources of feed and water is a
major cause of this,” she says. “Deserts are places where resources for survival are naturally sparse and
uncertain; when you introduce a major new competitor, it takes over resources that are vitally needed by
indigenous species.

“The aim of the control program is not to eliminate feral camels – that is considered almost impossible.
It is to limit their numbers to a level which permits indigenous species to survive. The Australian
Government’s control program has a risk management approach which is based on the level of threat
which camels pose to indigenous Australian species, landscape, communities and the grazing industry in
particular regions.”