Hi Mark
I would say that one helpful thing you could do to protect the desert
environment would be to stop eating cattle. There are many more cattle in
outback Australia doing more damage than camels are doing simply because
there are more of them. They also smash down vegetation and do all of the
things that camels do.
I am about to go offline as I am going away, not because I don't want to
take the response to my email.
Good birding
Gary
On 21 June 2011 11:15, Mark Carter <> wrote:
> Hi Brian,
>
> I'm glad to see that someone out there understands this issue. Its one I've
> become quite passionate about through living in the outback and seeing the
> shocking impact these massive destructive animals are having on fragile
> desert lands. Its not as off topic as you might imagine: having seen remote
> waterholes which once provided a lifeline to breeding reed warblers, crakes
> & grebes completely wrecked by camel herds, not to mention all the
> long-lived quondong and pittosporum trees smashed as they search for browse
> I am convinced that their impact on desert birds is tangible and
> significant.
> I am increasingly horrified that deluded animal rights campaigners
> sometimes seem to be hijacking the debate which makes the politicians
> nervous about backing the cull. In recent years they have used every cynical
> argument to undermine the proposed cull, some of them even advocating
> sending the camels for halal slaughter as some sort of a 'humane'
> alternative to aerial shoots. Of course their goal isn't to help out the
> camel meat trade- its simply to sabotage the cull.
> Despite all the talk, the camel meat industry is a pipe dream- it has never
> gotten off the ground for good reasons. I buy camel meat regularly but I
> must say the quality is extremely variable. Most Aussies don't want to eat
> it and the much vaunted Arab markets for the meat have never materialised.
> The cull might seem like a waste to some from a distance but considering
> our desert soils are the least fertile on earth letting these huge animals
> be re-cycled back into the ecosystem is probably the best use for most of
> them. We cheerfully put blood and bone in our gardens but seem squeamish
> about doing the same for our deserts.
> I personally would like to see the camel fully eradicated. Presently, with
> no predators and no significant population containment pressure at all they
> are simply a plague species and have no place in the ecology of the outback.
> Our predecessors created this problem so we have a responsibility to sort it
> out.
>
> Mark Carter
> Alice Springs
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