Between 1840 and 1907, tens of thousands of one-humped dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius) were imported into Australia to help with inland transport and exploration. Estimates range from about 10,000 to 20,000 animals brought into the country in that period.

The very first camel brought into Australia arrived in 1840, shipped from the Canary Islands; only one of that small group survived the voyage. This camel was named Harry.

But over the years the camel population grew to a point where they have become a nuisance. Australia is home to the world’s biggest feral camel population to the point they are considered a pest. There about one million roaming in the outback, damaging ecosystems.

To ease the burden, some countries are happy to take camels, as in this flight of camels headed on a plane to Saudi Arabia.

Quick facts about camels:

Camels are choking and dying from plastics in Dubai

Camel milk is considered superior to cow milk for many reasons. Here are 6.

The post Australian camels fly on a plane to Saudi Arabia appeared first on Green Prophet.

Tasty, high-protein and low-cholesterol, camel meat even has the approval of the Australian Heart Association.

Sustainability in the kitchen is our creed, and camel is a far more sustainable meat than beef (which the world was horrified to discover may be contaminated with horse meat). We have posted about camel milk and its health benefits. And where camels are as much a part of the landscape as native trees, people know how tender and tasty camel flesh is.

Looking further into camel as food, we discovered Café Clock, a blog authored by Mike Richardson, proprietor of a famous eatery in Fez by the same name. The Café Clock eatery flips hundreds of camel burgers every day. According to Richardson,

“One camel will produce on average, 150 to 200 kilos of kefta (minced meat). As our burgers are around 180 grams, that works out at 1000 burgers per camel.”

Related: don’t eat camels who have had Botox treatments

Considering that camels need less feeding and produce so much meat, it makes economic and sustainable sense for Westerners to get used to eating camel. In Morocco and Australia, it’s as acceptable as any other meat – and far easier to get than, say, locusts.

Richardson and his chef shared the secrets of their delicious camel burger with cookbook author Tara Stevens. She has written a well-received cook book, Clock Book, with traditional and modernized Moroccan recipes. The rose petals in the meat mix are said to be aphrodisiac…but we think that the hash fudge recipe would probably do the trick better.

Camel is permitted in halal kitchens, but kosher-keepers must only cast their eyes over the recipe, possibly extracting the tomato sauce called Taza Ketchup to accompany kosher burgers at home.

Camel Burgers recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 kilo – 2.2 lbs. ground camel meat

1 tablespoon fat from camel hump, or butter

4 tbsp finely chopped red onions

6 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 tbsp chopped cilantro

tbsp chopped parsley

2 tbsp chopped mint leaves

2 tbsp chopped dried culinary rose petals

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp red paprika

1 tsp cloves, ground

Lemon juice to taste

Salt  and pepper to taste

For the Taza Ketchup:

5-6 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

4 tsp ground cinnamon

4 tsp honey

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

More on camel meat and milk from Green Prophet:

Camel Meat Catches On In Canada

Camels For Milk And Who’s Buying

Grand Camel-ccino, Anyone?

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One of the most jarring scenes I remember from my trip through Syria is the sea of plastic that rolled along the shore of a stretch of desert highway that linked Aleppo to Damascus. This was 20 years ago and the problem with plastic in the throwaway Middle East where boys want a plastic bag for a can of Red Bull is just getting worse. Let’s look to Dubai where the camels are dying from starvation. Their bellies full of plastics and ropes that starve them to death. 

A new scientific study showing that desert camels are dying from mistaking plastic bags for food has lead pioneering plastic pollution researchers and others to call for a radical shift in how we discuss the problem that’s harming life in all environments on Earth–on land, not just in the sea. 

One researcher covering the problem found 2000 plastic bags in the stomach of one camel.

Marcus Eriksen, the study’s lead author and co-founder of the 5 Gyres Institute, is one of a handful of researchers to have personally sailed through all of the Earth’s five subtropical gyres,  where plastics accumulate. He has researched plastic pollution in the global oceans since 2008. This scourge, however, is far from limited to the “garbage patches,” he notes, but exists “in every body of water on the planet.” 

Furthermore, the study Eriksen and his team published, finding a 1% mortality rate among dromedary camels ingesting plastic outside of the city of Dubai–on top of similar deaths and suffering he and others have observed in animals from elephants to reindeer, plastic fragments found in farmland, even evidence that humans are ingesting plastic trash–has convinced him that we must begin to loudly sound a different alarm.

“As a civilization, we have to stop talking about plastic pollution as if it were confined to our oceans and start talking about global plastic pollution harming life everywhere,” Eriksen says. “We have a plastic pollution pandemic from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the sea. A limited view limits our ability to solve the problem.” 

Study co-author, Ulrich Wernery, director of the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has been observing plastic waste in over 300 camels in the desert region near Dubai since 2008, as published in the Journal of Arid Environments. He and Eriksen found tightly packed, suitcase-size masses of plastic bags, ropes and other litter trapped in the animals’ stomachs and digestive tracts. 

When ingesting this trash, the camels can feel a false sense of satiation and refuse to eat further, which leads to dehydration, malnourishment and death, they report. The indigestible materials also create gut blockages, ulcers and lacerations or deadly sepsis from abundant bacteria caught in the bags’ folds. 

Eriksen, director of science and innovation at 5 Gyres, found some of the animal remains in the desert himself, noting that bags are carried for miles by high winds. “We pulled one of these masses out of a camel skeleton that had over 2,000 bags in it. I cut this open and it was plastic bags through and through.”

Many countries have independently banned single-use plastic items, but Eriksen and the 5 Gyres Institute urge world leaders–including the Biden-Harris Administration, which has been silent on this growing crisis–to take bold, swift action by joining an international legally binding agreement to tackle plastic pollution under discussion this week at the UN Environmental Assembly (UNEA). The world’s top environmental decision-making body, UNEA notes that “the planet is in crisis and nature must be at the heart of global efforts to build back better” after the coronavirus pandemic. 

Oceanographer Charles J. Moore, credited with discovering and bringing the garbage patch concept to mainstream attention, echoes Eriksen’s call. 

“Today it is widely acknowledged that vagrant plastic waste is polluting oceans, rivers, soil, food, the water we consume, and even the air we breathe,” Moore says. “We have to wake up and accept that this problem is much bigger than we’ve previously imagined. It’s time to talk about this like the planetary emergency it is and take action.” 

Jane Patton, an environmental health policy advocate with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), agrees. 

“This new study comes on the heels of others examining plastic in fish and birds and provides one more example of how the prevalence of plastic is having untold consequences on flora and fauna across the globe,” said Patton, CIEL senior campaigner. “Now we know this crisis is not just about human health, but the health of all beings. To confront the plastic crisis, it is critical that the world community adopt a new global agreement, addressing the entire plastic lifecycle.” 

The 5 Gyres Institute is inviting all to join their efforts to protect camels by signing a petition urging the Biden Administration to join the binding international treaty on plastic pollution under discussion at UNEA this week. 

The post Dubai’s dead plastic camels appeared first on Green Prophet.

A dozen camels entered in an annual camel beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia were disqualified for use of Botox injections. According to the National online newspaper, judges discovered that 12 camels competing in the second annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival had been injected with Botox in order to enhance their appearance, a cheating ploy to win some of the event’s USD$57 million prize money.

The month-long festival, the Gulf’s largest, attracts more than 50,000 of the long-necked mammals, and – besides the beauty contest – includes competitions for camel racing, obedience training, camel hair art and the best photographs of camels. Contestants, all Saudi Arabian purebreds, vie for more than USD$57 million in awards.

Camels are judged on head size, whether the lips cover its teeth, neck length, the shape and placement of the hump, the eyes size, how long the lashes are, how the nose droops and whether the ears stand back. According to strict contest rules the animals must exhibit “untouched natural beauty. These dozen animals were rejected from the festival for receiving Botox, used in human cosmetic surgeries to remove wrinkles.

“They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,” said Ali Al Mazrouei, the son of a top Emirati breeder, to The National. “It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it’s like, ‘Oh look at how big is that head is. It has big lips, a big nose’.”

Previously, a veterinarian had been caught performing plastic surgery to reduce the size of the camels’ ears (dainty ears are also a winning look). Festival officials have tried to prevent cheating by microchipping the animals and requiring them to board in special pens before the competition to prevent their owners from tampering with them.

Owners are also required to swear on the Quran that they are telling the truth about camel appearance and ownership. Judges report that this is proving to be te best tactic to weed out cheaters.

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Google, bastion of cool-tech, has gone Throwback Thursday in a major way – resorting to camels to capture its latest addition to Google Maps. Thanks to their “camel-cam”, you can now explore Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Oasis exactly as the Bedouin have done for centuries, without leaving home.

The Liwa Oasis is best known for its date plantations and was historically used as a trade center by early settlers. Ringed by sand dunes ranging from 82 to 131 feet high, it’s now an off-track tourist attraction.

The surrounding Liwa Desert holds evidence of occupation dating back to the late Stone Age; it’s of the oldest sites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Google Maps blog describes this region of different-colored sands as “one of the most breathtaking landscapes in the world.” Liwa lies approximately 62 miles south of the Persian Gulf coast and 93 miles southwest of the city of Abu Dhabi in the Al Gharbia (Western) Region, on the northern edge of Rub’ al Khali desert. It sits around 23°08′N 53°46′E and stretches about 62 miles east-west, along an arch curved to the north.

Google Maps continually brings us to remote destinations such as the North Pole and Machu Picchu. Street View enables anyone with a computer to become a virtual Marco Polo. Typically, they capture panoramic images via specialized cameras mounted on cars or boats, but vast sand plains demand a different approach.

For the Liwa expedition, the Street View crew took its Trekker equipment and secured it to a camel. “Using camels for the collection allowed us to collect authentic imagery and minimize our disruption of this fragile environment,” the blog continued. Kudos for their environmental conscience.

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MERS, a SARS-like virus believed to be transmitted by either camels or bats has claimed another life in the Middle East. This time a mother of a newborn and an eight year old boy from Jordan.

The family came into a hospital for a regular check up when the MERS virus was detected, according to local reports.

“They had no travel history, no contact with a known confirmed case and no history of contact with animals,” WHO said in a statement. The eight year old boy from Jordan, his dad and newborn are all being monitored. None of the family had been in contact with animals or other suspected cases of MERS.

To date the World Health Organization has found 163 laboratory-detected cases on infection and 70 deaths. The latest death in Abu Dhabi was preceded by two deaths in Qatar in November. 

Human cases of MERS, which can cause pneumonia and flu-like symptoms such as coughing and fever, have been reported in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Tunisia.

The Qatari health council warn people with underlying health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illnesses to avoid any close animal contact when visiting farms and markets.

The coronavirus MERS emerged in the Middle East last year, killing nearly 40 percent of the people so far infected.  It’s related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and fears that the virus would explode amongst this year’s Hajj pilgrims have so far proved unfounded.

Image of virus under microscope from Shutterstock

The post MERS Killer Virus Claims Life of New Mother in Abu Dhabi appeared first on Green Prophet.

The South Australian Environment Department killed the camels after a truck collided with seven animals on the Eyre highway linking southern and western Australia. The truck driver wasn’t injured in the crash, but Nick Secomb, Project manager of the South Australian Feral Camel Management Project, told local press that “the camels weren’t so lucky.”

Meanwhile in Dubai, camels are being genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical proteins through their milk. This is the first time, according to our sources, that drugs produced by transgenic animals will be approved for use in humans.

The post Australia Kills Nearly 400 Camels From the Sky appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dr. Nisar Wani from the Reproductive Biology Laboratory at the Camel Reproduction Center outside of Dubai says the project is designed to decrease the cost of life-saving medicines such as insulin, but the words genetically modified are likely to sound off an alarm – especially since no other first world country has approved drugs produced from transgenic animals.

Humans have been altering the genetic makeup of animals for a long time. This tampering allows us to express favorable traits, with no harm to either us or the animals themselves. In the case of the Dubai’s Cama, for example, Dr. Skidmore wanted to produce an animal that would have the llama’s lovely fleece and the camel’s resilience and strength.

But genetic modification is different as it involves introducing foreign genes into the animal’s genome.

Dr. Wani told SciDev.net that they are creating camel cells that have been modified with exogenous DNA for use in producing transgenic cloned animals. Eventually, perhaps as soon as this year, the lab will transfer the transgenic embryos to surrogate mothers.

Cloning is very difficult and comes with a very low success rate.

We talked to Dr. Mark Band, the Director of Functional Genomics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who says that thousands of transgenic animals around the world have been produced.

“Most likely they will insert human genes to produce proteins through the camel’s milk,” he said. “These genes will then be modified so that they are only expressed in the mammary.”

This ensures that the camel will not use the inserted proteins themselves, which could be potentially harmful to them, as they will only be produced through the camel’s milk.

However, Dr. Band notes that, as far as he knows, no other countries in the world have approved drugs produced by transgenic animals.

In 2009, the United States Federal Drug Administration compiled a list of frequently asked questions related to transgenic animals.

“To date, no transgenic animals have been approved for use as human food. A very limited number have been approved for rendering into animal feed components,” the agency notes.

This means that any drugs produced by Dubai’s genetically-modified camels can only be sold in Dubai, as it would be unlawful to sell them in countries that do not approve such pharmaceuticals.

We contacted Dr. Wani for comment but have not yet received a response.

The post World’s First Genetically-Modified Camels in Dubai to Produce Medicine appeared first on Green Prophet.

Five men and four Bactrian camels travel 1500 km through India, but it doesn’t go quite the way it was planned.

If there are two things we love (apart from the planet), it’s camels – because they are the desert dweller’s best friend – and adventure. Do the two go hand in hand? Absolutely. And not only in Morocco and Dubai, but also in India.

Collective Moments of Madness is a heartful documentary about five international travelers who planned to trek 1500 km with Bactrian (double humped) camels through the Himalaya Mountains in Northern India all the way south to the Pushkar Camel Festival in the desert. But as we discovered recently in Tunisia, even the best laid plans go awry, and the camel odyssey was fraught with unexpected challenges that began with ominous words from an Indian Oracle.

Not so long ago we wrote about an Australian woman who spins camel wool in an effort to save more than one million camels in the outback. That was Helen Durrant, who we can thank for putting us in touch with Kamahl Druesne, the talented filmmaker behind Collective Moments of Madness.

We had no idea what the documentary would entail, and admittedly expected an amateur flick that would only appeal to the most die-hard camel lovers, but because we are always interested to demonstrate how valuable these animals are – not only in themselves but also for the numerous services they provide to humanity – we asked for a copy of the film.

And we are definitely glad we did.

The film traces the entire length of the journey from Ladahk in Northern India, where three Frenchmen, an Australian (Druesne, the creative mastermind behind the documentary and the charismatic narrator), and a Brit gathered, all the way past Rajasthan to the annual Pushkar festival that attracts 300,000 cameleers and visitors.

Right from the beginning there were unexpected pitfalls, the kind that would be – in reality TV shows – ironed out with nasty bickering and drama but that were instead handled with humor and poise, not to mention respect. Respect for the process that is travel and the transformation it creates, and for one another.

Real travelers, not those who seek out bespoke hotels and icy margaritas served up by cute locals with perfect buns, are constantly looking for the next best authentic adventure. Which is what the camel odyssey was all about. It was also designed as a gift of sorts. Indians living south of the Himalayas have never seen Bactrian camels, since Dromedaries are far more common, but when they did, they were filled with awe.

Adventurers, the people who are constantly drifting from one far-flung place to another, are often viewed with great suspicion: they are considered selfish and unable to dwell in ordinary society, or thought incapable of growing up. These stereotypes are severed in Collective Moments of Madness, which depicts real camaraderie, not only between humans, but also between the men and their hapless humped companions.

Every new challenge met with integrity is communicated to the viewer, allowing even the most listless couch potato to envision themselves in these magical landscapes, riding camels, eating and dancing with the locals, overcoming blisters and heat and early mornings.

In other words, this is the ultimate travel documentary, because it is so real and so heartfelt that the viewer will feel compelled to book the next flight to India so that they too can experience such a rich and expansive adventure.

Don’t expect a well-scripted, polished BBC documentary with huge funding. This trip is gritty and raw and the film reflects as much. But you will walk away with a whole new respect not only for our camel friends, but also for the people who still care for them.

If you would like to have your very own copy of Collective Moments of Madness, contact Kamahl Film

More camel news:
Woman Spins Camel Wool to Prevent Slaughter of 1.2 Million Wild Australian Camels
Dubai Camels to Chomp Down Runaway Mangrove Forests?
6 Green Reasons to Drink Camel Milk

The post A Camel Film With Big Heart: Collective Moments of Madness (Review) appeared first on Green Prophet.

]]> https://www.greenprophet.com/2012/04/collective-moments-of-madness/feed/ 5 https://www.greenprophet.com/2012/04/dubai-camels-mangrove-trimmers/ Sun, 08 Apr 2012 10:42:21 +0000 http://www.greenprophet.com/?p=70349 Dubai is considering biological control: camels to dine in Dubai’s Ras al Khor wildlife sanctuary overrun by mangrove trees Too many mangroves is not a good thing – at least not at the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary in Dubai, where they were introduced in 1990. So an ecologist at Dubai’s Wildlife Protection office has […]

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Dubai is considering biological control: camels to dine in Dubai’s Ras al Khor wildlife sanctuary overrun by mangrove trees

Too many mangroves is not a good thing – at least not at the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary in Dubai, where they were introduced in 1990. So an ecologist at Dubai’s Wildlife Protection office has proposed using camels to trim back the excess canopies that have buried wader feeding areas. Kevin Hyland told The National that camels used to have access to the sanctuary before it was fenced off in 2002, and that reintroducing them would help restore the site’s sensitive ecology without disrupting bird life.

Greedy Grazers

Hyland emphasizes that the camels would be introduced as part of a careful management program, and that they will not be left to run amok.

“The key phrase in the whole proposal is ‘managed camel grazing,'” the ecologist told the paper. “It’s not, ‘let’s just chuck in 100 camels’, because we don’t want to destroy the mangrove canopy.”

According to Hyland, BirdLife International opposed the plan to introduce mangroves to the Ras Al Khor Sanctuary  in 1990 as part of a “greening” program, and now, 20 years later, the wildlife protection office and Dubai Municipality are beginning to glean the error of that initiative.

Although spoonbills have proliferated as a result of the invasive mangrove canopies, feeding grounds for certain species have been buried by five meters of mangroves. So now they want to reverse some of the damage.

Instead of employing 20 workers to cut back mangroves, which is likely to scare off spoonbills and other bird species, the camels can munch on the green leaves. And just in case too many mangrove leaves are bad for camels too, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory will be on hand to monitor the animals.

Camelback Tours

And when ground-nesting birds breed, the camels will be removed. Hyland also likes the idea of using the camels to create a new eco-tourism initiative. Instead of putting the sanctuary’s rangers in 4x4s, he told the paper that they could lead bird tours on camelback instead.

Camel milk may also become available at a new visitor center that is being floated as a potential part of the new management plan, which would help to educate visitors about the importance of the wetland reserve so famous for attracting a great number of migratory species amidst Dubai’s urban sprawl and for its 500 flamingos.

As long as mangrove fodder is healthy for the camel trimmers, Ras Al Khor camels face a better fate than that of Falaj Mualla camels, half of whom die from eating plastic despite concerted efforts to draw awareness to this situation.

And the birds will be grateful too.

More on Birds and Camels:
Dubai is for the Birds (and the People who Love Them)
Woman Spins Camel Wool to Prevent the Slaughter of 1.2 Million Australian Camels
6 Green Reasons to Drink Camel Milk

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